Emmanuel: A Trinitarian Affirmation

During the Advent/Christmas Season, we often hear the title "Emmanuel" spoken of concerning the infant Christ. But lately, I've been thinking of this term in a much broader way, and have realized that this title, which literally means "God with us," is such a rich description of God's saving work in history.

The students of the Christian Theology course I TA have been discussing the doctrine of the Trinity for the past couple of weeks, and I have been reminded of just how central this doctrine is to our faith as Christians. Sure, we rarely casually speak of God in Trinitarian language, but I would imagine, if we thought about it for a while, we'd realize just how Trinitarian the Christian faith is. As John Wesley wrote in his sermon, "On the Trinity":

"The knowledge of the Three-One God is interwoven with all true Christian faith; with all vital religion....I know not how any one can be a Christian believer till he 'hath,' as St. John speaks, 'the witness in himself;' till 'the Spirit of God witnesses with his spirit, that he is a child of God;' that is, in effect, till God the holy Ghost witnesses that God the Father has accepted him through the merits of God the Son: And, having this witness, he honours the Son, and the blessed Spirit, 'even as he honours the Father.' Not that every Christian believer adverts to this; perhaps, at first, not one in twenty: But if you ask any of them a few questions, you will easily find it is implied in what he believes."

At Christmas time, we often hear the title "Emmanuel" given to the infant Jesus, but it has occurred to me how we cannot limit giving this title to only the Second Person of the Trinity. IfChrist is "God with us," then he is "God with us." God the Father is certainly with us in God the Son. Therefore, Jesus can say, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father." But it's not even just the Father and Son who is with us. (In fact, not to point out the obvious, but while Jesus was with us, he is not anymore. He has since been raised, glorified, and has ascended back into heaven.) When we today say that "God is with us," we can only mean that he is with us by his Spirit. So when we say "Emmanuel," we must also be speaking of the Holy Spirit, who is truly God with us today.

I find this very reassuring, and feel the depth of the presence of God in a new way when using the title "Emmanuel." If you're still wondering, however, what any of this has to do with anything, then let me simply draw out a couple of implications:

(1) If "Emmanuel" designates only Jesus, then we believers living today may not rightly use the term, for Jesus Christ sits at the right hand of the Father, in heaven--he is not here, he has ascended to his throne. However, we have been given the deposit of the Spirit, who is also "Emmanuel," God with us!

(2) Sometimes I think we forget about the activity of the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. During this time of the year it is easy to remember the infant Jesus, but it seems difficult to recall the work of the Holy Spirit. Let us not forget, however, to praise the Father for the sending, not only of his Son, but also the continual sending of his Spirit. We who are alive today, separated from the Incarnate Christ, are not without the presence of God, because we have been given the presence of his Spirit, "Emmanuel."

May this title, "Emmanuel," become even richer to you during this Advent/Christmas Season, and may the God who is Father-Son-Spirit be "Emmanuel" always.

Dispensationalism Fails the Bible Test Again

For those who have tracked with this blog since its inception this past Summer, you have probably noticed that I often like to throw out a critique or two of dispensationalism--the extremely deficient "end-times" teaching that sees Israel's nation-state status gained in 1948 as a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy (along with many other errant teachings). The reason I do this is not because I have nothing better to do with my life, but rather because of my concern for certain of my friends and family members who have bought into this line of "theology" without realizing what they've bought.

Well, it's time to make another biblical argument against dispensationalism. But before we do, let's recap the two fundamental errors of dispensationalists (actually, this is probably the first time I've listed them on this blog):

(1) A flat-footed, fundamentalist, "literal" interpretation of Old Testament prophecies concerning the restoration of Israel to the land of Canaan--an interpretation that contradicts the New Testament interpretation of those same prophecies.

(2) The proposition that God has two distinct peoples: (a) the physical descendants of Abraham, or Jews; (b) the Church--which also runs flatly contradictory to the New Testament witness.

These are the two cardinal errors that make dispensationalism an unbiblical theological position. And by correlation, this makes the assertion that the founding of the nation-state of Israel in 1948 is a fulfillment of God's plan for the Jews also contrary to the biblical witness (not to mention just about everything in the Left Behind and Late Great Planet Earth novels). There are many ways of arguing this, and I have already mentioned some in previous blogs, but here's one more reason why we ought to reject the claims of dispensationalists:

Dispensationalists argue that the land of Canaan (a.k.a. Israel/Palestine), as defined by biblical boundaries irrevocably belongs to the physical descendants of Abraham--namely, Jews. (Note that this theory in untenable if for no other reason than that the Bible gives more than one set of boundaries: see Abraham's promised territory vs. the territory that was to be conquered by Joshua vs. the promised territory in Ezekiel, for instance.) Thus, the establishment of the nation-state of Israel in 1948 in portions of the biblical land of Canaan constitutes, for dispensationalists, a fulfillment of the many Old Testament prophecies which speak of the inheritance of the land by Israel. In other words, the land of Canaan (modern "Israel") belongs to Jews, by divine decree. Their establishment in this land in 1948 signals that God is getting back to his plan for his primary people, which are Jews (not the Church--which is nothing more than a "parenthesis" in God's big plan for Abraham's physical descendants).

So what's wrong with this thinking? Does God promise this land to Abraham's descendants back in Genesis 15 and 17? Doesn't he affirm this promise over and over again in the Old Testament? Is that not true? Yes, that is true. The problem is when we stop with the Old Testament prophecies, and neglect how the New Testament interprets those same prophecies.

Listen to Paul in Galatians 3:26-29, and remember that he is speaking to Gentiles [non-Jews] here:

"You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. (I suggest reading the whole chapter, actually the whole letter, for a more thorough understanding of what Paul says.)

Paul here says that Gentiles, who have come to faith in Christ, are "Abraham's seed [descendants] and heirs according to the promise." So I ask again, Who are Abraham's descendants? Dispensationalists reply: "Jews, of course." Well, Paul replies, "all who belong to Christ." [See also v.7 in this chapter, where Paul explicitly says "Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham."]

And so another question presents itself: Who are the heirs of the promises made to Abraham, including the promise of land? Dispensationalists reply: "Jews, of course. And 1948 proves it!" Paul replies, "If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise." Whose side do you want to be on?

So what about the promise to land thing, then? Does this mean that the land of Canaan, or a little plot of land about the size of New Jersey (modern-day "Israel") belongs to everyone who believes in Christ, not just Jews? Not exactly. In the same way that the New Testament authors understood Abraham's descendants in a broader, spiritual way [not only the NT authors, but remember Jesus' own words in John 8:39-41, and John the Baptist's words in Luke 3:8!], they also understood the promise to the land in a broader, more significant way than most of the OT authors could have ever dreamed.

For example, look at Jesus' own words in Matt. 5:5--a passage from the famous "Beatitudes." He says, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." You may have glanced over this text before, but we ought to stop and notice where Jesus takes these words from: He's borrowing this phrase from Psalm 37:11. But check that text out; it's wording is slightly different: "But the meek shall possess the land." Here Jesus interprets the promise of land to the promise of the whole earth!

Moreover, look at Paul's words in Romans 4:13: He writes, "It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith." We have already established that Paul sees Abraham's descendants, spiritually-speaking, as all those who believe on Christ. But where does Paul get the idea that Abraham was ever promised to be an heir of "the world"? The promise, as recorded in Gen. 17:8, quite clearly refers to the land of Canaan: "The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God." Paul is casting this promise into an eschatological light--seeing the promise of the restoration of the whole world, the New Earth (see Isaiah 65:17 and Revelation 21:1).

Finally, if you would turn to Hebrews 4, you will see that the author here also draws on the imagery of the inheritance of the promised land. Specifically, he speaks of this promise in terms of "inheriting the promised Sabbath rest." In v.6 he writes of the rebellious Israelites who came up out of Egypt under Moses' leadership: "those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in [to the land], because of their disobedience." Then, in v.11, the author of Hebrews exhorts his own congregation (presumably, both Jews and Gentiles): "Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience." How can he exhort his congregation, and the Church at large, to enter into the Sabbath rest in the land if "the land" is understood as Canaan and Jews are the only "descendants of Abraham" to whom this land belongs? Obviously, the author of Hebrews understands the Abrahamic promise of land to be a type, a shadow, of the future promise of God's People, the Church, to inherit the eternal rest of the New Earth.

Much more biblical evidence could be presented, but hopefully it is clear from the three above-mentioned texts that the New Testament interprets the promise of land to Abraham in a broader, more significant way: The fulfillment of the promise of land to Abraham and his descendants will come at the restoration of the heavens and earth, when the whole people of God, both Jews and non-Jews [the Church!!!], will enter the New Earth, where God will dwell with his one people forever.

This is the hope of God's people, especially during the Advent Season--that Christ is returning soon and he is bringing a new creative act with him. He will create a New Heaven and New Earth, in which the whole People of God will dwell with him for all eternity! Let us not be swayed from the New Testament's witness by misguided dispensationalists. Rather, let us continue to pray the prayer of the Church: Maranatha! Come quickly, Lord!

Advent: Between D-Day and V-Day

The Book of Revelation is in large part a book about the return (or "parousia") of Christ. It speaks of the condition of the fallen world of men prior to the final, triumphant coming of the Messiah. It speaks of seals opened, trumpets blown, battles fought, and the everlasting worship of God amidst all of the world's chaos. Sometimes all these images scare us, confuse us, make us ignore this book's contents.

But nestled right in the middle of the Book of Revelation is something we might not expect: The Christmas Story.

Have you missed it? Well, look again at the first few verses of chapter 12:
"¹A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. ²She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. ³Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. ⁴His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. ⁵She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne."

Surely, good Jewish readers of John's day recognized the messianic prophecy concerning the One who would "rule all the nations with an iron scepter" (Ps. 2:9), and just in case we missed it John himself tells us that this is none other than Jesus Christ in Rev. 19:15. So this "son, a male child" is the infant Christ. We know his mother, Mary, from other stories in the New Testament. And we know of Satan's attempt to "devour her child the moment it was born" when we recall Herod's "Slaughter of the Innocence" in Bethlehem. But the story goes on....

In a nutshell, the dragon fails to devour the child, and the child, Christ, conquers the dragon at the cross and at his bodily resurrection from the dead (Revelation 12:7-9 poetically speaks of the cross and resurrection of Christ in terms of the warrior archangel, Michael, casting the dragon out of heaven). The dragon is hurled down to earth, and "he knows his time is short" (v.12). While he still holds the last vestiges of power and influence, the dragon begins a last-ditch campaign against the "offspring" of the woman (v.17), who are described as "those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus." This is us, the followers of Christ; we are the dragon's target now.

And here is where we live....We live in between D-Day and V-Day.

We live in a world where the decisive victory against evil, "the dragon," has been won. Christ has triumphed. Evil is decaying, even as it lashes out one last time. The cross, the resurrection, the ascension--these are past events. We look back at them to reassure us that our hope for the future is not in vain.

But we are not out of the woods yet. The Christ has come, but he is also still yet to come. The first advent is in the past; the second is in the future. And so we enter this "advent season" once again, remembering, as John the Revelator did, that Christ's first coming guarantees his second coming. Because he has already won the decisive victory over evil, we can be assured that he will finally step in and end the war against evil that still rages today. The Christmas story and the story of Christ's Return at the end of the age are two sides of the same coin. We live between the advents, between D-Day and V-Day, and we live in the power of the Spirit who enables us to be faithful to "the testimony of Jesus."

Continuity

I just had a conversation with a friend today, who, at one point in our discussion, made a statement something to the effect of this: "If you think Christianity 500 years from now is going to look anything like it does today, then you're crazy!"

Now, in defense of my friend, what I think he was trying to say was something like: "Every generation has to rearticulate the Christian faith in such a way that it connects with the prevailing culture of the time"--a sentiment that I would heartily agree with. However, my friend's mistake was in suggesting that almost any issue concerning the faith is up for grabs. (For instance, this same friend has suggested that, in the future, Christian notions of Jesus' nature might look something like what some so-called 'Messianic Jews' teach today: namely, that Jesus is God's Messiah, but this does not mean that Jesus was fully human and fully divine. He could be God's Messiah and still be only human.) Also, in my friend's defense, he is an astute biblical scholar, who has wrestled with the texts of Scripture more thoroughly than almost anyone else I know personally.

As a result of his scholarship, my friend has come to understand how frequently the texts of the Scriptures have been re-worked and re-interpreted in order to come more in-line with the people of God's understanding of what God was doing in the world. (Thus, after the conquest of Canaan, the texts were re-interpreted. After the Babylonian Exile, they were interpreted again. After the building of the Second Temple in the 5th c. BC, they were re-interpreted and re-worked once again. And especially after the Christ event, the texts were re-interpreted. And so on, and so on....) All of this is very true, by the way, and I do not disagree with his assessment of the biblical texts.

But the question here is really a question of historical continuity. If it is true that the Christian faith could look drastically different 500 years from now than it does today, then how are people 500 years from now supposed to know if what is being articulated is truly the Christian faith or not? If the Christians of 500 years from now, after 500 more years of biblical, scientific, archaeological, and other studies, come to the conclusion that, in fact, Christ was only a human Messiah, not a divine-human Messiah, then can what they believe still be called the Christian faith?

In a nutshell, if the words 'the Christian faith' mean anything at all, then how much can the beliefs of Christians, or their interpretation of the texts of Scripture, really change? I want to respond this way: If the words 'the Christian faith' have any meaning at all, then the articulation, or re-articulation, of that faith must have SOME sort of continuity throughout all ages, cultures, languages, world-areas, etc.

And how are we to arrive at this continuity? Once again, as I have attempted to say time and time again, we arrive at this continuity through a historical study of the faith, and a historical study of the way Christians throughout all places, times, etc. have understood the Scriptures and their own experiences of salvation. While there are sure to be many places of divergence, disagreement, and even (unfortunately) hostilities, we can--LET ME SAY THIS LOUD AND CLEAR-we can identify some measure of continuity throughout it all.

Much of this continuity is summed up in the creeds of the ecumenical Church--the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds; however, we can also go deeper as we study the history of biblical interpretation, theological reflection, etc. and find even deeper continuity. In faith, we believe that the reason for this is because of the Holy Spirit's continuous work in and through the members of this faith--his Church.

I would imagine that, at this point, not very many of my readers would disagree with my sentiments. However, the converse of all of this is that there are most certainly things that fall outside the historical Christian faith and interpretation of the Scriptures. Such things are called "heresies," and include:

(1) Arianism: the belief that Christ is not divine, but the first of God's creatures.
(2) Docetism: the belief that Christ was only divine, and did not truly die on the cross.
(3) Modalism: the belief that God presents himself in three modes of being, and is not, in and of himself, Triune, or Three 'Persons.'

But there are also some beliefs which have no continuity throughout the Christian faith which we are hesitant to call outright "heresy." (However, we can easily call them bad beliefs.) Such include:

(1) Pre-millenial dispensationalism: the ideas concerning the "End Times" presented in Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth, and more recently in the Left Behind series of novels. These ideas originated with the Englishman Nelson Darby in the 19th century, grew in popularity after the establishment of the nation-state Israel in 1948, but have no roots in the historical Christian faith.
(2) The idea that some (American) Christians share with Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists that America is the center of God's plan for redemption--or, as it used to be said, that America is the "New Israel."

We need to recognize that neither do these beliefs have any continuity with the historical Christian faith--even if we are not using the term "heresy" much anymore to describe them.

I say all of this to simply say, in response to my good friend, that even 500 years from now I believe the Holy Spirit will still be speaking a message to the hearts and minds of believers that is in continuity with the faith that Christians everywhere hold to today, and which Christians everywhere have held in the past. I believe this in faith; I cannot prove it to anyone. It is, however, the very basis of my ultimate hope. We need to more thoroughly recognize what truly stands in continuity with the historical Christian faith (things like the human-divine Nature of Christ) and things which do not (like the Left Behind version of Christian eschatology).

When we find ourselves in continuity with the historical faith and historical biblical interpretation, I believe we will find ourselves in continuity with the Spirit Himself.

Abraham has a bosom?

In reading the works of John Wesley over the past few weeks, I have been stopped dead in my tracks by an orthodox Christian doctrine that, I have to admit, has rarely ever slid across my radar. Let me ask you a few questions before I explain:

Do you remember what Jesus said to the penitent thief on the cross? "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in Paradise"? Have you ever wondered, as I have, well how does that work? Does Paradise=Heaven? or is something else going on here?

Or what about that passage in Luke 16, where Jesus tells the parable about the "rich man" who went to "Hades" (this is the Greek word used, not "hell"), and Lazarus who went to "Abraham's Bosom." What do we do with that? Does "Paradise"="Abraham's Bosom"="Heaven"? Does Hades=Hell? (And what about the Old Testament word, "Sheol" that I see in my footnotes all the time?)

Or what about that extremely awkward clause in our creed which says that Jesus "descended into Hades" (again, "Hades," not "hell" is the word used)? How did that make it into a creed for crying out loud?!

It seems to me that most of us, myself included, have simply glided past these problematic texts, never questioning the simple assumption that, upon death, people either go to heaven or hell. But is that even a biblically grounded assumption, or did we import that into the text?

But then what do we do with the fact that the biblical witness expects a general resurrection of all mankind at the end of time, when Christ returns and judges the world? Isn't it then that people go to heaven or hell--only once they have been judged?

And what do we do with the fact that "heaven" is not really what the New Testament says Christ invites us into, but rather "the kingdom of heaven," and, at the end of time he welcomes us to participate in "a new heavens and new earth"?

Once again, I submit that, for most of us, we have just ignored the problems in our theological understanding of the afterlife. We might suppose that this is the realm of "speculative theology," and have considered ourselves unfit for the task of sorting this all out. However, I would submit that this is not a very difficult problem to solve, it's just one that we're very unfamiliar with because of our neglect of it.
(I mean, come on, if you're going to explain how the world will end with a rapture of the Church, a 3.5year period of peace, followed by the "abomination of desolation" in a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, which is followed by the great Battle of Armaggeddon, which includes armies from Russia, China, and Iran teaming up against the Jews in Israel, and then 3.5 years of anarchy and cosmic chaos ensue, which will precede Christ's final coming.... then the doctrine I'm about to propose we reappropriate is kindergarten-level stuff comparatively.)

It has occurred to me, as I've read Wesley's sermons, that we in the modern evangelical church have simply ignored a key doctrine concerning the afterlife: that doctrine is, for lack of a better term (there may be a better one I am unfamiliar with) the doctrine of the intermediate state--or, in plain English, the teaching about where people go when they die before the final resurrection and judgment.

So, if you were to die in the next five minutes, would you go to heaven or hell? Well, unless you intend to usurp the final judgment of Christ, I guess you would have to say that you wait in a place the Jews called "Sheol" and the Greeks called "Hades" (the Bible uses both terms), which is divided into two realms: "Paradise" or "Araham's Bosom" for the righteous, and the other, apparently unnamed side, where the wicked await final judgment. Either way, all of us wait for the final judgment, when Christ will decide who participates in the "new heavens and new earth," and who will be banished from it to the place he calls "Gehenna" or "hell."

Right Christian teaching says that we await the resurrection in the abode of the dead, which is given names like "Hades," "Sheol," "Abraham's Bosom," and "Paradise"--not that we go to heaven or hell when we die.

I am going to assume at this point that I have overloaded most of our brains, and stop here, even though much more could be said on the matter, and I have probably created more questions than answers.

However, I'm very interested in your comments on this: have you ever heard the doctrine of the intermediate state preached? Has it come up in Bible studies you've participated in? What did you think about the word "Hades" before you read this? Have you ever even considered that the idea of us going to either heaven or hell when we die sort of messes up our chronology of the general resurrection and judgment (not to mention that it's sort of not in the Bible)? Any thoughts, comments, questions, concerns would be much welcomed. This is my attempt to open up a dialogue on an orthodox teaching of the Church that, somehow, I think most of us have just simply missed. So, let's hear from you!

Salvation: Lifeboat vs. Renewal of the Imago Dei

As of late, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the topic of salvation. Take a moment, if you would, to consider what images, ideas, whatever come to mind when I say the word salvation….

…Alright, do you have those images, ideas, etc. in your mind? Good. Now I would pose to you this question: Do the images, ideas, etc. that come into your mind when I say the word salvation seem to fit better with the idea of “getting out of Dodge,” or are they more akin to the image of a caterpillar’s metamorphosis into a butterfly? Are these ideas and images more like jumping into a lifeboat to escape a sinking ship, or are they something like looking in the mirror and finding a more beautiful image than you expected? When I say salvation do you picture a bodiless spirit floating up into some spiritual realm called “heaven,” or do you see a fully embodied person being re-made into the likeness of Christ?

The question can be put like this: Is salvation about saying the right words or conjuring up the right disposition so that someday, after I die, my soul can avoid hell, or is it about being re-made into the “image of God” (the imago Dei), which is the existence God always intended for us to have?

Does salvation change the now or just the future?

Does salvation make us better, or just our destination?

Does salvation mean anything to the world, or is it just a possession of the individual?

Does Christ primarily save us from something or to something?

Obviously, the question is largely one of emphasis. The standard evangelical answer in Protestant America today (as influenced heavily by the Reformed tradition) is that salvation is a lifeboat, a way of escaping this world that is surely on its way to hell. Salvation is about getting individual souls into heaven. This view is accentuated by the pessimism of contemporary dispensational apocalypticism—i.e. The Left Behind series and Hal Lindsay’s Late Great Planet Earth—and by the individualism of popular American culture. It is a worldview that firmly believes that evil is on the rise, and that it is the predetermined will of God that this should be so. However, it also awkwardly desires to propose that we can “save” some individuals from impending doom—even though this doom, and those who will be saved from it, is determined by God—by confronting them with questions like: “If the world (or your individual life) were to end tomorrow, would you go to heaven or hell?”

[Now let me answer the critics before they even speak: (1) Yes, I believe in a two-fold outcome to history: some will finally be saved, and others will finally be lost; (2) Yes, I believe the lost will eternally perish in hell—for if heaven is eternal, its antithesis must be also; (3) Yes, I believe the Gospel of Christ confronts us with choices, which have eternal implications.]

OK, hopefully I’ve already answered the main blows I’m sure to get for this blog.

I wish to continue, however, by proposing a different view concerning salvation. This is not a new view; in fact, I would argue this view is more in line with the classical Christian faith than the above-mentioned view, and it is certainly the view most consistent with the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition, of which I am a part. (Unfortunately, many of this same tradition have adopted the above-mentioned view without even realizing that it runs counter to our tradition.) The alternative view of salvation can be summarized like so: Salvation is about restoring people to the image of God (imago Dei).

This is a holistic approach. It says that salvation is about body and soul, community and individual, the moment of repentance and the process of being sanctified. John Wesley once preached that “the great end of religion is to renew our hearts in the image of God.” The lifeboat approach to salvation doesn’t really speak to the renewal of the imago Dei—the whole point of God’s saving work in Christ. The lifeboat says, “Quick! Pray this prayer! Jump in the boat and let’s get the hell out of here!” (or maybe “let’s get the here out of hell!”)

But if we view salvation in this way, what impetus is there to change our world? What point is there in challenging the systems of evil in our world that cause exploitation, famine, and dehumanization? The “lifeboat” approach to salvation says, “See! I told you the world is getting worse! Now, don’t worry about changing things, just get in and let’s get out of here!”

Viewing salvation as the renewal of the imago Dei, however, encourages us to participate in the redemption and restoration of all things. When we are made into the likeness of Christ, we are not simply concerned about getting others into heaven; we’re at least as equally concerned about bringing a foretaste of heaven into our existence here on earth. This is not universalism, or utopianism. This is simply saying that salvation is about redemption and restoration—not just of individuals, but of communities, societies, ecosystems, everything—and it is not just about getting individual butts into heaven.

This view of salvation also changes the way we do “evangelism.” If we understand that salvation is about restoring the imago Dei in not only individuals, but in communities, then our evangelism might simply be this: Creating communities of faith that exhibit the imago Dei, and inviting others to participate in those communities.

We, especially those of the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition, need to reappropriate this holistic view of salvation, which includes a holistic view of evangelism, Church, and eschatology. Salvation is not about getting people to jump from the sinking ship into the lifeboat headed for heaven; it’s about allowing Christ, through His Spirit, to re-create the image of God in us.

Living for the Future

So I am hooked on a new show.

Hillary and I don't have cable, but we sometimes watch shows posted to the Internet. "LOST" has been our addiction for some time now, but as "LOST" heads into its final season, ABC has begun airing a new show, which I believe is intended to catch all those "LOST" fans who will be without their favorite show in a about a year: the new show is called "FlashForward."

The mysterious premise of the show goes like this: all of the sudden, on October 6 of this year, everyone in the world blacked out for 2min. 17sec.--everyone in the world at the same time. Not only did everyone blackout, however; during their blackouts everyone saw what appeared to be visions of their own individual futures 6 months from the present. Whether good or bad, everyone saw what the future could/will be 6 months from now.

Obviously, mass chaos ensues following the 2min. 17sec. of blackout, once everyone reawakens. However, once the pandemonium settles down a bit, people start to ask themselves: are the visions real? Will I really be __________ 6 months from now? If their vision was good, the person becomes extremely hopeful and embraces the future. If their vision was bad--or, if the person only saw darkness during their blackout--the person fights to resist the future.

I need not draw the whole plot out or give away any more. However, I simply can't stop thinking about the parallels that could be drawn for the Christian life. What I mean is this: for those who see a hopeful future 6 months from now in their vision, life becomes an extremely joyous adventure, one the person can embrace wholeheartedly, even somewhat recklessly. For instance, one character literally had a gun to his head when the blackout occurred, but as a result of having a vision of a bright future, he woke up 2min. 17sec. later with hope and joy. Another character [sorry, I'm giving away just a bit more] needs to have a fairly dangerous surgery, but since he has also had a bright vision of his future, he goes into the surgery relaxed and even a bit eager!

I am immediately reminded of Jeremiah 29:11--a promise made to the people of God centuries ago which still speaks to the people of God today: "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord. 'Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.'" I am also reminded of the ultimate, two-fold hope we believers have because of Christ's resurrection: (1) the hope that we too will be raised to new life! (2) the hope that Christ will one day make all things new, giving us a new created world in which we will finally live in completely restored relationship to God.

We too are given a vision of the future--and this vision is recorded in the Scriptures. (I'm not just talking about the Book called "Revelation"; I'm talking about the whole narrative of the Scriptures, which culminations in Christ's return and the recreation of all things.) We too can live with hope for the future.

Not only that! We've got it even better than those who had good visions in FlashForward, for we have received the Holy Spirit! The Spirit of Christ enables us to bring a glimpse of the future into the present, through his movement in and through the Church. The future has broken into the present, and we live in the "already/not yet" with hope, because we know that our future is bright in Christ!

Bad Hermeneutics: Part 2

Well, it's time for another grand edition of "Bad Hermeneutics!"


The following video is meant to primarily illustrate a bad hermeneutical practice that, unfortunately, too many Christians have gotten in the habit of: namely, reading the Bible with one hand and the newspaper with the other.

Check out the video HERE, and, if you're interested, there are noted below a few other points of dispute with regard to the views expressed in this video.


Points of historical and hermeneutical dispute:

1) Dispensationalists often like to argue that the establishment of the independent state of Israel in 1948 is significant because it is the first time since the Babylonian Exile (which began under the infamous King Nebuchadnezzar) that Jews have ruled the land called now known as the nation-state of "Israel." This is actually a simple historical fallacy. Protestants are oftentimes unfamiliar with the stories recorded in 1 & 2 Maccabees (because they are not found in our canon of Scripture), which tell about a Jewish Revolt against Greek occupiers that took place in the 2nd c. BC, and which brought about the creation of the Hasmonean Dynasty--an independent and autonomous Jewish state in the same location as the modern nation-state of Israel. (See HERE for a quick synopsis of the Hasmonean Dynasty.) Simply put, this is not the first time since the Babylonian Exile that Jews have ruled an autonomous, Jewish state in the land called "Palestine." This does not necessarily rule out the importance of the state's creation in 1948, but that importance cannot be derived from the idea that this is the first time since Exile that the Jews have occupied and ruled the land today called "Israel." Mr. Van Impe is simply badly informed historically.

2) I am perplexed by Christians today who attempt to use the predictions of Nostradamus to buttress their prophetic claims. Moreover, I am perplexed by Christians who attempt to use the Mayan cyclical calendar system (which is said to put the date of the end of the world [or of this age] at December 2012) to buttress these same claims. Since when did Christians start looking to Nostradamus and the pagan Mayans for their prophetic information? Even more appalling is the fact that several of those who have done this--including Mr. Van Impe, see HERE--are those who want to claim (as they hold the newspaper and Nostradmus' prophecy in one hand) that the Bible is their only basis for prophetic information. Too which we simply reply: bologna.

3) Another significant historical point: Mr. Van Impe often mentions the possible future rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. While the above videos did not discuss this at length, it is Mr. Van Impe's (and many others') opinion that the future rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem (which implies the [often violent and illegal] destruction of the Dome of the Rock, which sits in the same place), if this one day occurs, will almost assuredly usher in the last dispensation of history, the end of the world. It is interesting to note that this is not the first time this belief has been strongly held by those in the land called "Israel." When the Jews returned from the Exile, under the Edict of Cyrus in 538 BC, the Temple was rebuilt, under the leadership of the Jewish governor, Zerubbabel (it was later destroyed by the Romans in 70AD). During this time, the biblical texts evidence great religious fervor amongst the people of Israel, and a strong belief that Zerrubbabel might be the promised Messiah and the "Day of the Lord" (i.e. "end of the world") might be at hand (see the book of Haggai, Zechariah 1-9, Ezra, and Nehemiah for pertinent texts). The last time the Temple was rebuilt people believed that the end of the world was upon them--unfortunately (or fortunately for us!) it was not. I guess you could then summarize the dispensationalist, Israel-supporter's stance like this: "We'll get 'em next time boys!" I am being facetious, of course, but in a truly biblical way we must recognize what the New Testament Church recognized, and which Jesus himself declared: "One greater than the Temple is here."

Praise God that Christ has superseded the need for a Temple in Jerusalem (not too mention Nostradamus and the Mayan calendar), and has made his body, the Church, a Temple of His Own Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19).

Hope and Optimism: Hallmarks of the Christian Worldview

I am so tired of hearing and seeing Christians caught in a pessimistic worldview!




"The country is in a downward, immoral spiral...."
"Obama's gonna make this nation godless and socialist...."
"The whole world's going to hell in a hand-basket...."
"Iran's gonna nuke Israel and set off Armageddon...."
"Things are going to keep on getting worse and worse...."

Brothers and sisters, I ask you: Where is our HOPE?!

We serve the Lord Jesus Christ, Who has conquered death and now sits on his glorious throne in heaven, interceding for us! He is the Lord of History, and will move all things toward his ultimate purpose and fulfillment. He has already won the crucial battle, and has already passed judgment on the rule of evil and death in our world. We are victors according to his faithful self-sacrifice on the cross, which redeems us from sin, separation from God, and the decay of this world. We live in anticipation of the new age realizing that, in Christ, it has already dawned! We live in the light of his glorious resurrection, which is our guarantee--along with the deposit of his Holy Spirit--that Christ will come again! We know that all of history is moving toward the final day when he will make all things new! We know that not a single event falls outside of his redeeming plan for creation. We have hope!

Need I say more?

Paul emphasized three essential characteristics of the Christian way of life: faith, hope, and love. I think we get the love part--at least we talk about it enough, even if we don't get it yet. And we probably talk enough about faith as well (although we often tend to privatize and individualize it). But what about hope?

We don't talk enough about hope.

We need to remember that we have great hope because of Christ's first advent and the promise of his second advent. We live in the interim--in "this present age," longing for "the age to come." And we have great hope that it will arrive, and that all of history is moving toward its arrival. And so we ought to be more optimistic, because even though there is great evil in the world, we also know that there is great good in the world as a result of Christ's work within it, through his Holy Spirit. Moreover, we know that the great evil in the world will ultimately be removed when the kingdom of God is consummated at the return of Christ.

And so we are optimistic, but not in the way the world sometimes is. We don't place our hope in any politician, political party, or new movement or activism.

We do not have the hope this poster suggests (and we would not have the hope it would have suggested had McCain or Pat Robertson won)!

We don't tout the great "ideal of progress," as Western science and politics so often do. We don't buy into the idea that human progress is inevitable, because we have seen what man can do on his own--two World Wars, the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.


We do, however, remain optimistic because we know that God has broken into history and is redeeming it for his own purposes, even against the will of those who would rebel against him.


Do you have hope? If you serve the Risen Lord Jesus Christ, you do!




He has come and he will come again! Therefore, we wait with optimism and hope!

Christ-centered Hermeneutics

So I really cannot say enough about the issue of hermeneutics (a.k.a. "the art of interpretation"). It is really such a vital, necessary thing for us Christians to have a well-informed hermeneutic of the Scriptures (as my previous blog post--namely the video link therein--evidences). So I want to present, in different words, a concept I have already presented in a different way in the three-part blog I wrote a while back, which was entitled "Who gets to say, 'The Bible says...'?".

I would direct your attention to the words of Christ in John 5:39-40, where he says to a group of Jews who are upset that he had healed a man on the Sabbath: "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, and yet you refuse to come to me to have life." (emphasis mine)

Again, in Luke 24:25-27, Luke recounts the story of Jesus rebuking the two dejected disciples on the road to Emmaus: "He [Jesus] said to them, 'How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! [emphasis mine] Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?' And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." (emphasis mine)
Later on in that same passage (vv.44b-45), Jesus serves the two disciples the Eucharist--symbolizing his own body and blood--and says to them: "'Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms [which was a Jewish way of saying "all of Scripture"].' Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures."

Why do I highlight these two passages? Because I think these passages give us a glimpse of a sort-of hermeneutical "key"--namely, that the "key" to understanding and interpreting the Scriptures is Christ himself. He himself says that all the Scriptures speak of him. He is the Word of God (Logos of God) to Whom the words of God (scripture) ought to point us.

If the Scriptures ever cease to point us to Christ--if we become more concerned about our doctrinal formations, our exegesis of the original languages, our historical and cultural background information, our "authorial intent"--then the Scriptures cease to function as they should, in the same way that they had ceased to function as they should have for the Jews Jesus spoke to in John 5.

And so you might ask, how can we--2,000 years after Christ--use Christ as our hermeneutical "key"? This may be true in a sort of theoretical way, but how does my proposal that Christ is our hermeneutical "key" really change how we read the Bible today? How can Christ really function as the "lens" through which we see the Scriptures when Christ is no longer among us?

But praise be to God, HE IS AMONG US! And how is he among us? By his Spirit. And where does his Spirit reside? Within each of us who have been baptized into the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--in those of us called "Church."

So if you ask me how Christ can be the "lens" for our interpretation of the Scriptures, I will answer you: Christ is our lens for the Scriptures when we allow the Body of Christ--the historical Church, filled by his Spirit--to help us interpret the Scriptures.

We only rightly understand the Scriptures when we interpret them in light of the confession of the historical Church, which is the Body of Christ indwelled by his Spirit. This is our safe-guard against the myriad of misinterpretations out there (see my previous blog for one of the worst). This is how we can avoid ending up like the Jews to whom Jesus spoke in John 5--who "diligently studied the Scriptures," but who had not recognized the Savior to Whom those Scriptures pointed them.

May the Scriptures always point us to the Christ of Whom they always speak.

Bad Hermeneutics: Part 1

So, I thought about entitling this post "And you thought your pastor was bad?!" (for reasons you'll understand more clearly once you watch the attached video) but I realized that would be opening up a nasty can of worms if I did. So here is a link to a video, which forms "Part 1" of a (probably) ongoing series I'm simply calling "Bad Hermeneutics." Check out this 4-minute video, and prepare to say... "WHAT?!"

Click here to watch Independent, Baptist "Pastor" Steven Anderson talk about why real men "pisseth against the wall."

(P.S. This is where fundamentalist, independent baptist "theology" will lead you. Visit his "church's" website at http://www.faithfulwordbaptist.org, where he mentions how he did not go to college, but he's got over 100 chapters of the KJV [the only inspired translation] memorized by heart!)

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live...

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

I've been studying Galatians lately, and I can hardly tell you how much the Holy Spirit has been revealing to me through the words of Paul in this brief, angry, yet powerful letter. And the above quoted verse (2:20) has played a central role in what the Holy Spirit has been teaching me. I wonder, do we really hear Paul clearly in this verse?

Just read this verse a few times--let it soak into your mind. Do you hear this man?

Let me try to summarize/paraphrase what I hear Paul saying here: "I'm dead. When I was baptized, I died in Christ. Christ has literally taken over my earthly existence--come into my body and animated my very being. He is now the agent who lives the life that I refer to as "my" life. When you see me move, breathe, speak, even get angry--it's not me, it's Him. It's not me living anymore; it's all Him!"

I think Paul has a much more radical vision of the Spirit of Christ at work within the life of a believer than we often recognize. But, if I'm understanding him right, how can he make such a radical statement? He explains in the rest of the letter to the Galatians (whom he is desperately trying to persuade not to fall into the trap of obeying the Torah in order to receive God's full salvation).

Some of you may notice that my wording of the above-mentioned verse is a little different from the way it is probably printed in your Bible--only in one spot really: I have translated "the faithfulness of the Son of God" where it is usually translated "faith in the Son of God." Why? OK, a little Greek lesson! This phrase is in a certain kind of Greek case--called the "genitive"--which allows "the Son of God" to be translated as either the subject of the action implied by the word "faith" (the faithfulness of the Son of God) or the object of that implied action (faith in the Son of God). So English translators essentially just have to choose one. So why do I choose the translation I do? Because I think it makes better sense of the rest of the verse: "...who loved me and gave himself up for me." This last part of the verse described how Christ was "faithful"--i.e. he was faithful unto God and unto us in his sacrificial death on the cross.

But I digress from Greek....(Really both translations are "true" in that it really wouldn't matter if we put our "faith in Christ" if Christ hadn't been "faithful" to sacrifice his life for us on the cross; but because he did, we do put our "faith in Him.") Why is this important though?

I think it's important because I think Paul has a much more radical view of the eschatological nature of Christ's death on the cross.

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa! Greek AND technical theological words?! Come on, Ian--do you seriously expect me to keep reading this?

Yes, I do. "Eschatological"--from the Greek, eschaton, which literally means "last things." Eschatology is often talked about in terms of "end times" events--death, heaven and hell, the Day of Judgment. However, Paul--and the entire rest of the New Testament writers for that matter--were fully convinced that the "end times" actually started with Christ; i.e. Christ's death and resurrection were eschatological events! Not only that, Paul and the rest of the NT writers believed that we are living in a new age--the age of the kingdom of God, which is, in a sense, already here, and in other sense, not yet here.

The Israelites were looking for this new age to come: Remember the passage Peter quotes to the people at Pentecost? Joel 2:28-32. It begins, "In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people...." Not only did the NT writers--including Paul--see the Christ event as eschatological--i.e. ushering in the "end times"--but what's more, they saw the pouring out of the Holy Spirit as an extremely eschatological event.

Bringing it back to Paul in Gal. 2:20, do we understand now a little bit better the enormity of what Paul is saying? He is saying essentially, "Look, we're living in the last days! The Christ has come and sacrificed himself for us. The Spirit has been poured out freely upon all of us--Jew and Gentile alike. Now, our very existence is defined by Christ's Spirit alone animating our very beings." This is why Paul begins wrapping up the letter to the Galatians by saying, "So I say, live by the Spirit...."

This is the message I wish to convey--which the Holy Spirit has been conveying to me in a stronger way than ever recently: we who have been baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are dead; and yet we live because Christ, through his Spirit, animates our very being. We ought to expect, then, that we will start looking less and less like our old selves, and more and more like the Christ "who loved [us] and gave himself for [us]." And this is exactly Paul's point too: he says, "Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation." (6:15)

And what does this "new creation" look like according to Paul? Does it look like going to church a lot? Reading and memorizing more scripture? "Witnessing" more? No, none of these things are the primary indicators that Christ's Spirit is forming us into his likeness. Paul says, "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love." This fits with our odd translation of 2:20--since Christ's faithfulness unto death on the cross was the demonstration of his love for us, the demonstration that the Spirit is at work within us, forming us into Christ-likeness, is our faith expressing itself through love.

May all you who bear his Name live through the eschatological power of the Spirit of Christ within you this week. Amen!

How do we know Christ has been raised?

This is the question that has haunted me when my faith has faced the most difficult doubts: how do we know Christ has been raised? How can I--as a Protestant Christian, living 1,950 years after the fact, living in a land 10,000 miles from the events described in the New Testament--how can I know that the reports of Christ's resurrection are true?

Have I ever stopped believing? Thanks be to God, no. But have I ever had what I felt to be an adequate answer to this question--which is really a question of certainty? Well... no, not really. However, today I'd like to reproduce for you--my Christian friends and family, and anyone who has yet to believe in the resurrection of Christ--a portion of what I wrote in my journal this morning.



"A sort of epiphany has occurred to me this morning. The Holy Spirit, in speaking through my thoughts, has answered a pivotal question for me--the question which has for some time been the most disturbing to me when my faith faces doubts. I have for some time now realized that the entirety of a Christian's hope and faith rests upon the historical event of Christ's resurrection--the event which serves as the focal point for the New Testament gospel. (Paul even writes that if the resurrection of the dead has not occurred in Christ, then we Christians are among the most pitiable people on earth, and our faith is in a lie [1 Cor. 15].)

"I have often wondered, though, how I--as a 21st c. North American Christian--am supposed to even know, with any degree of certainty, whether or not the reports of Christ's resurrection from the dead are true. I have never ceased to believe it, but this is the form through which my deepest doubts have sometimes been manifested.

"I was blind, but now I see! I should have seen this so long ago--but I don't know if anyone has ever explained it to me this way: How do I know (how do we all, as Christians, know) that Christ has been raised from the dead? Because we have received His Holy Spirit! He could not have given us His Spirit if He had not been raised from the dead. But He has been raised! And we have received His Spirit, at baptism! And I cannot deny that I have seen the evidence of the Spirit--in the church, in my life, in the Scriptures, in the ordering of life in general. We have received His Spirit--Who is the deposit, the guarantee, not only of our resurrection to come, but, primarily, of Christ's resurrection, which has already come! He is the first fruits from among the dead, and we have received His Spirit as evidence of His resurrection!"

May this be an encouragement to all who have received His Spirit--those of His Church--and to all who have yet to receive but wish to know the power of the Resurrection.

Christ is Risen!
He is Risen, indeed!
And we have received His Spirit as the evidence thereof.

"I will come again." Really?

Do we really believe that Jesus is going to return? I mean, do we really think that at a particular point in history we will all stop what we're doing and watch as the Son of Man himself appears in our world and begins to judge the world?

Wow. These questions have hit me in the face over the past few days as I've begun courses in both "Apocalyptic Literature/Revelation" and "Eschatology" (which is the name given to the theological study of the doctrine of "last things"--judgment, heaven, hell, etc. [from the Greek, eschaton, meaning "last things"]). It's not that I've never confessed to believing the doctrine of Christ's return (or his parousia as its often referred to, using the Greek word that is quoted in the NT). It's just that something inside of me started asking: do you really believe this?

I mean, it's been 2,000+ years (!) now since the first advent of Christ. It seems extremely doubtful that any of the apostles or the 1st century Christians could have expected a delay in the parousia this long--most of them expected his return within their own lifetimes to be sure! And even the most generous estimates by Peter in 2 Pet. 3:7-9 only hint toward a one-thousand year waiting period: what if we could go back in time and tell Peter, "hey buddy, we can tell you for sure it's at least two-thousand years." I think we'd blow the biblical authors right out of the water if we went back and told them that--and still we wait.

So do we believe it? Do we believe Jesus is coming back "to judge the quick and the dead"?

Now, let me clear that I am not asking you--nor have I been asking myself--to believe the strictly dispensationalist, premillennial understanding of his return. (If you're unfamiliar with what this means, just pick up Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth, or the newer Left Behind series of novels... or better yet, just check out the picture below.) This particular eschatology has arisen over the past 200 years or so, beginning in colonial America, and is very popular amongst North American evangelical groups (though hardly with anyone else) today. While I certainly have to consider the implications of this popular view--and I think we all should--the question I have been confronted with is much more basic, simpler, and more to the point.

The "Rapture"of dispensationalist, premillennial, apocalyptic eschatology. (The idea being presented here is that Christ's parousia will be preceded [by 7 years] by a mysterious removal of all true believers from the earth, which will mark the beginning of the last dispensation of history--the 7-year reign of the antichrist.)



What I've really been wrestling with is this: do I--as a fairly comfortable, well-off, North American Christian--really believe that Christ is going to step back into history at a decisive moment in order to judge the world--welcoming some of us into his kingdom and banishing others of us from it? I mean: heaven? hell? judgment? Aren't these words a bit too cryptic to really be taken literally? Do I really think that one day I might just look up at the sky and see JESUS--the bodily resurrected Lord? I mean, come on... SO many Christians have looked for the Lord to return throughout history--many of them setting specific or general dates for his return--and have been either vastly disappointed or even thoroughly humiliated when they're date passes right on by without event. I mean how can modern, 21st-century Christians--with the long history behind us, and surrounded by the scores of out-right wackos and con-men who take this stuff seriously--be expected to say with a straight face, "I believe the Lord Jesus will come again."

And yet... here's my confession: I believe the Lord Jesus will come again.

I don't know how it's all going to take place. I'm almost certain that when someone says they do know details that those details are almost certainly wrong. I don't know when it will take place, but I believe I should be expecting it every day. I don't know who goes to heaven or who goes to hell, but I know Christ has called us to follow him into his kingdom. I am extremely frustrated with the popular images and stories and interpretations in the evangelical Christian world that seem to ask you to suspend your intelligence, jump through a gazillion mental hoops, and sign your name to a time-line of the end of the world, which is the result of adding 400 to 1260 subtracting 7 taking the square root of "pi" and ending up at November 10, 2009. All of this confusion aside, however, and this remains for me....

I believe that history has a beginning and an end, and at both ends we find Christ--the One through Whom everything was made, and the One through Whom everything will come to its culmination.

So I truly pray and hope you'll pray with me: Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!

Creation, Sin, and the Quest for Truth

I want to pass along a rather insightful set of ideas that I've heard a professor of mine speak about a couple of times now. It has helped me to understand and appreciate my own thirst for knowledge in a different light:

Aristotle wrote, "It is the nature of man to know." Christian doctrine affirms this human quest for knowledge and truth, which requires the use of our uniquely human faculty known as "reason." How does Christian doctrine affirm the quest for knowledge and truth? By the Doctrine of Creation. The Nicene Creed confesses, "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible." Our God is, we believe and confess, the Creator of all things--including anything that is worth knowing, anything that is true, all knowledge and wisdom. Moreover, we believe that "the Word (Logos) became flesh." Not only that, "through him [the Word of God, Christ] all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." Therefore, all that exists in the cosmos--including knowledge itself--is a creation of our God, through Christ, the Word. There is an implicit affirmation here of the human quest for knowledge. We do not bridle our quest to know and to know that which is true, because--as it has been put simply throughout the ages of Christian thought--"all truth is God's truth."

However, if we become overly confident in our knowledge and in our understanding of the truth, we deny the Doctrine of Sin. We not only confess that God is Creator, but we also confess that humanity has been corrupted by the effects of sin. Consequently, even our ability to know--our use of "reason"--is corrupted, deficient. In Christ, we have certainly seen a great Light, but our very ability to see has been corrupted and cannot be fully restored in this world. So we are left with this disadvantage: although we can affirm our quest for knowledge and truth because these things are the creations of our Lord, we also affirm that our grasp of knowledge and truth are, at best, partial. "For now, we see in a mirror dimly...."

So why is this important to note? Well, let me try to explain why it is important to me....

Sometimes I hear from the mouths of prominent Christian leaders comments about "intellectuals," "PhDs" and "university people" (even about college students in general) which are very degrading. I even recently received an email forwarded onto me by a family member, in which a man with a radio Bible ministry was specifically criticizing Nazarene universities as hotbeds of "heresy" in the denomination, and also made specifically derogatory comments about "those with PhDs" simply because of their degrees. But as we have seen, this sort of anti-intellectualism is itself anti-Christian. To criticize people solely because they have pursued knowledge is to deny the Doctrine of Creation.

What is more, it is often from very similar mouths that I hear talk about "objective truth." While I believe, in faith, that some things are absolutely true--i.e. God's Son is Jesus Christ; He has risen from the dead; the Church is His body in the world--I do not believe anything is "objectively true." When someone proposes that something is objectively true, they are saying that this truth can be demonstrated to any rational person and be proved to be a true proposition. Yet this is a denial of the Doctrine of Sin, because we have forgotten that our ability to reason has itself been corrupted. Therefore, if we believe anything to be "objectively true" or "rationally demonstrable" we deny our own sinfulness. Should this keep us from making statements and confessions of faith? Not at all! We ought to desire to make sense of our world because it is the good creation of our Heavenly Father. However, we should be humble enough to realize that while our search for truth is a noble one, it is also one that--in this life--will only ever be partially successful.

Thanks to all who continue to read and grapple with the ideas I myself am wrestling with. May God touch us as he touched Jacob, leaving us forever changed.

The "Emerging Church": What is it?

So there is a lot of talk these days about the so-called "emerging church." Sometimes this term is used interchangeably with other terms like the "postmodern movement," or the "postmodern church," or "Emergent Church" (which is actually somewhat different), or just simply "liberals." Most of the time, these other terms are employed polemically--meaning people use them to argue why we should not like the "emerging church." I want to simply introduce this topic of the emerging church to the blog, and hopefully clear up some of the misunderstandings.

First of all, attempting to define the "emerging church" is like attempting to answer the question, "What color is the rainbow?" Probably the first and most important thing to note is that the "emerging church" is not a monolith--it does not have one face. The "emerging church" spans many denominations, theological traditions, political affiliations, worship styles, etc. So if anyone says something to you like, "We don't/do embrace the emerging church because the emerging church is __________," ask them which part of the "emerging church" they're talking about. Even the simple question, "Who is a part of the 'emerging church'?" will be answered differently depending on who you ask. Also, make note that words like "postmodern" and "liberal" are oftentimes just as slippery terms as "emerging church"--they mean very different things depending on who is using them. We need to do better with the way we use these sorts of terms. Vast misunderstandings--which often lead to arguments, dissension, and even downright hatred--are formed when we begin to use terminology like this in sermons, lectures, and casual conversation without realizing what we're saying.

So, I will not attempt to give a once-for-all definition of the "emerging church" precisely because I know that this would not be possible. (Be critical thinkers regarding those who say it is.) However, I think it is possible to attempt to identify certain themes which run throughout many--but not all, nor all the same--parts of the "emerging church" movement. Once again, these themes do not represent all churches that could be considered a part of this movement, nor would each church in this movement have to have elements of each of these themes. It is a very diverse movement, but here are what I believe are some themes that we might be able to begin the conversation identifying as common within many strains of the "emerging church" movement:

(1) Dissatisfaction with and criticism of 20th-century American Evangelicalism: Many "emerging churches" in the U.S. have arisen as a result of simple dissatisfaction with the status quo of modern, American, evangelical churches. The criticisms are often that this sector of the church has been too politically slanted, or that it has become too obsessed with "personal/individual faith," or too consumed with a specific version of the "saved--vs.--unsaved" question, or that it has lost touch with the historical faith of the Church and substituted an "American Christianity" for it.

(2) Anti-institutionalization / anti-denominationalism. Denominations are seen as a construct of modernity (i.e., they only occur after the Reformation, during the Modern Era [usually dated at 1500--2000]). Denominations are often seen as only divisive; however, many "emerging churches" recognize that the even non-denominational congregations become a sort of denomination, and they attempt to reconcile this fact with their faith and mission.

(3) A belief (they might say "recognition") that the wider culture in the West has moved past modernity into "post-modernity," while the church in the West seems to have dug its heels into modernity. This is an important point to Brian McLaren, one of the founders of Emergent Village--which is a title for a distinct coalition of churches within the "emerging church" movement. (Check them out at http://www.emergentvillage.org/) The point here is that "postmodernity" is not so much a good or evil worldview or perspective as much as it is a description of where Western culture is at today--in a world that looks much differently, and looks at itself much differently, than it did 500 or even 50 years ago. More importantly, the point is that the church in the West is failing to speak to this postmodern culture, because it is stuck, not in a Christian or biblical worldview, but in a primarily modern worldview--and the problem, as it is argued, is that the church in the West can't tell the different between the modern and the biblical/Christian worldview.

(4) A cry for social justice on a global level, and a partnering with anyone of any creed who shares this conviction. This is not a particularly new development--many are familiar with the Social Gospel of the 60s--but this "social gospel" has grown to maturity in many "emerging churches" where the emphasis is not so much on evangelizing to the world as it is on serving the world. Thus, these churches are also very ready to partner with organizations of other faiths or secular organizations to do, what it considers, "the work of the kingdom."

(5) A renewed interest in the ancient and medieval traditions, rites, liturgy, theologians that have been neglected by almost all Protestant churches of the past 200 years. An author like Robert Webber would be a good resource for surveying this thinking. There is a real hunger amongst many in the "emerging church" movement to sort of "get back to real basics"--not just back to 1950s Protestant, "Leave it to Beaver" America, but to get back to early (1st-4th c.) and medieval (5th-12th c.?) church practices--like the remembrance of saints, or a revival of ancient Eastern liturgical practices.

(6) A very missional-mindedness that (to me) sounds very Wesleyan, honestly. Many of these churches stress the missional nature of the church (see Rob Bell's home church's website at http://www.marshill.org/). The church is not an institution, but a community with a mission--now as to how that "mission" is defined... once again it's a diverse movement.

(7) An emphasis on the ancient, Hebrew origins of the Bible--they (and I also) would very much dislike the "American Patriot's Bible" which I mentioned in my first blog. Also check out anything written/produced by Rob Bell on this. He is really the main guy I am thinking about when I say this, but he is extremely influential in this so-called "emerging church" movement.

(8) An attempt to transcend the "liberal vs. conservative" divide. While most of the evangelicals who would be critical of the "emerging church" often dismiss the entire movement as "liberal", the emerging church movement, for the most part, seems to hate both the terms "liberal" and "conservative." They often try not to find "common ground" between the two labeled sides, but to simply go entirely beyond the arguments posed by the two sides. (For instance, in his A New Kind of Christian series, Brian McLaren speaks several times about other religions and salvation. Whereas "liberals" often want to argue for a more open salvation, and "conservatives" often want to argue for confessors' salvation only, McLaren proposes that perhaps the appropriate stance is to say, "What business of it is mine to decide who gets into heaven?".)

Well, this is obviously not an exhaustive list, but it will hopefully give you a better idea of what we're talking about when the very ambiguous term "emerging church" is being used. Really, I think the best idea is to converse about individuals and individual churches within the "emerging church" instead of trying to tackle the entirety of the "emerging church." The reason for this is that anytime someone attempts to argue any point about the "emerging church," an exception (and often, many exceptions) can be found to disprove their argument.

So, be careful little ears what you hear--because many want to say "The 'emerging church' is good/bad because of __________." A sentence like this is mostly nonsense, and its speaker is probably just parroting something they heard anyway. But I am finished with this lengthy blog, and the dialogue is open...!