Beauty

(One of my favorite pictures from my semester in the Middle East: a friend captured a picture of my silhoette against the sunset while I was standing on the edge of the Sahara Desert in Western Egypt.)  
 I have developed a somewhat eclectic mix of aesthetic values.  I like watching strange movies like The Fountain as well as popular films like The Lord of the Rings.  I enjoy the music of Enya, Damien Rice, Charles Wesley (his hymns), Nat King Cole, and David Crowder.  I love visiting the Art Institute in Chicago! (...and am looking forward to another visit at the end of this school-year with my family!  Their Impressionistic Gallery is astounding: Renoir is probably my favorite.)  Medieval Byzantine iconography is incredible to me, and I have an icon of Christ Pantocrator, which I purchased in a monastery gift shop in Sinai, hanging in our home.  I love beautiful landscapes, and have greatly enjoyed a few outings into the Western United States, where I have visited and hiked through Yellowstone and the Grand Teton mountain range.  Not only the "Wild West," but even a walk through the local park district here in Bourbonnais is often full of beautiful scenery and wildlife.  Even things like grammar, eloquent discourse, and a well-written novel have immense aesthetic value to me.  C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce and George MacDonald's Phantasties come to mind.  Even the Scriptures themselves, apart from guiding me into theological truth, have an unparalleled beauty, in my eyes, in the whole of the world's literature.  And, above all else, the relationships I share with my wife, my family, and my close friends are, among many other things, very beautiful to me. 

Beauty is everywhere, for, as the hymn writer has put it, "this is my Father's world."

I truly believe that God has demonstrated his love for us, not only in sending his Son and his Spirit, but in leaving his mark in absolutely everything that is.  Creation entails all that exists, and all that truly exists--all that truly is--has a measure of beauty in it because it derives its very existence from the Father of Heavenly Lights.  Take time today to appreciate the beauty around you, even right next to you, even within you!  Beauty is not an autonomous entity; it is a derivative of the Creator God.  Let this blog post be nothing more than encouragement from me to you to locate the beauty you encounter today, and give thanks to the God who has granted that beauty should be a part of this, "my Father's world."

Evangelism & Conversion: The Holy Spirit's Work

What comes to your mind when I say the word "evangelism"?  How about "conversion"?

Do you think of T.V. preachers?  Street-corner preachers?  Do you think of tracts you've received in the past?  The "Roman Road"?  The "sinners' prayer"?  Altar calls?  Revival meetings? (For you non-evangelicals reading this blog post, I'm sorry about all the foreign terminology.  For all you evangelicals... yeah, you know what I'm talking about.)

Now let me first say that none of the above-mentioned methodologies are inherently bad (although I have serious reservations concerning some of them), but let me ask you this question: What do all of these methodologies have in common?  Namely, what (or "Whom") do each of these methodologies tend to so often neglect?

Here's how I'd answer the question: The Holy Spirit.

So often, in "evangelism" or attempts at "conversion," we put the emphasis on our methodologies: we need to direct people to pray this type of prayer, give them this type of tract, use these sets of Scriptures, walk them through this type of convincing argument that forces them to the conclusion that they need our product, "the gospel," (which is basically what vacuum salesmen do).  And, again, none of this is inherently bad.  Use Scripture.  Lead people in prayers of repentance.  Even pass out tracts.  (Probably avoid the salesmen techniques.)  But remember this...

...evangelism and conversion are not primarily our tasks.  They are first and foremost the work of the Holy Spirit.  When we use these "strategies," we are doing nothing more than partnering with the Holy Spirit in the work He is already doing in the life of the person we're speaking of.  If you don't accept this fact, then why share the gospel in the first place?  If I read the Book of Acts rightly, the evangelism of the disciples only began and only continued within the context of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  I think we forget this far too often.  Someone's conversion--their acceptance of the gospel--does not primarily depend upon our presentations of the gospel or our evangelistic strategies; it primarily depends upon the work of the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus says "blows where It will." (John 3)

The Wesleyan doctrine of "prevenient grace" (or "grace that goes before [salvation]") helps me in thinking this through.  According to the Wesleyan understanding of the work of God's grace, God not only saves us by his grace, but prior to this he attracts us, calls to us, woos us by his "grace that goes before."  If God's grace--which is to say, the work of the Holy Spirit--is understood in this way, then all of our "evangelistic outreach" must be understood in light of what the Holy Spirit is already doing.  I believe the Holy Spirit is calling all men to repentance, and that whenever we present the gospel--whether through word, or through deed--we are doing nothing more than partnering in the work that the Holy Spirit is already performing (and has been doing a heck of a lot better than us for a heck of a lot longer, I might add!).

In conclusion, then, let me offer a model of evangelism that might seem an alternative to those methods you're familiar with (that is, if you're a part of "Evangelical Christianity").  This methodology is analogous to the situation Paul describes in 1 Cor. 14:24-25 and to the description of the early church in Acts 2:42-47.  Here goes: What if we thought of evangelism as inviting people into our community of faith and letting the manifestation of our unity in Christ be the "gospel presentation" that the Holy Spirit uses to convict them of sin?  Stated in another way, what if people came into our churches and there found communities of faith that were so evidently filled with the Spirit of Christ that our communal life itself was the "gospel presentation"?  What if we focused more on confronting people with a unified church than with six verses out of the Book of Romans?  I tend to think that people will be much more receptive to the message of those six verses out of Romans once they have seen the demonstration of the communal life in Christ clearly apparent in a righteous and loving church.

Perhaps then, the non-believer in our midst  "will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, 'God is really among you!'" (1 Cor. 14:25)

"Sola Scriptura"

Having taken up a course in Reformation theology this semester, I have already begun to realize that one of the great tenants held by modern Protestants concerning the Reformation is little more than a myth. I am speaking of the notion that the Reformers--Luther, Calvin, and others--finally got "back to the Bible" after a long dry-spell of any biblical truth in the so-named "Dark Ages." This myth is often summarized in the polemical battle-cry--"sola scriptura!"--which is so often shouted by one Christian group over against another Christian group (both of whom believe the Bible to be the true words of God).

The truth is this: The dominant stream of the Christian Church has always, even pre-Reformation, believed that the Scriptures are the primary source of theological truth. The Reformers did not differ from their Medieval counterparts, nor from their Roman-Catholic antagonists, in this regard. The Bible has always been the source of theological truth for the Church, and here's a few Medieval theologians who recognized this long before the Reformers were even born:

Duns Scotus (13th c.): "theology does not concern anything except what is contained in Scripture, and what may be drawn from this."

The whole Medieval Augustinian Tradition: a group of clergy who, according to world-renown Oxford Dean of Theology Alister McGrath, "emphasized that the basis of Christian theology was scriptura sola." (From McGrath's Intellectual Origins of the Reformation)

Augustine (5th c.), who wrote an entire volume called "On Christian Doctrine" that was little more than a handbook on how to understand and interpret the Bible.

Nicholas of Lyra (14th c.), who emphasized the need to listen to the "literal meaning" of Scripture long before Luther or Zwingli.

Thomas Aquinas (13th c.), the great "doctor" of the Medieval Church, and one of the most influential theologians of all time, who said long before the Reformers that Scripture is the fidei fundamentum, the "ground of faith"

This is a brief overview of some of the most important Medieval voices to have given credence to the notion of "sola scriptura" long before the Reformers. These theologians dominated the Medieval Church's understanding of Scripture, so we can assuredly conclude that "sola scriptura" was not a new innovation of the Reformers.

The Reformers did not "get back to the Bible," they just began to read the Bible in different ways than it had been read before. The issue has never been--nor is it today--about some Christians who are "Bible-believing" and some who are not. Those who earnestly follow Christ and take his message seriously have always grounded their faith in the Scriptures. The issue has always been an interpretive one: It's not about whether we believe the Bible is true, it's about how we read the Bible.

This is the reason I believe this is important for us today: If the Church pre-Reformation really already based their understanding of God on the Scriptures in the same way the Reformers did, then we Protestants who hardly ever give credence to any reading of the Bible that came before Luther or Calvin (or in some cases our own pastor)--we need to be attentive to how the Church read the Bible for the 1500 years prior to the Reformation. We can go a step further: we need to be attentive to how other Christians outside our own small circles of modern, Protestant, evangelical, American Christians read and have read the Bible.

One of the great tests of "orthodoxy" developed by St. Vincent of Lerins in the 5th c. was to ask the question: "What has been believed by all Christians, everywhere, at all times?" Let us rephrase slightly: "In what way have the Scriptures been read by all Christians, everywhere, at all times?" (Of course all might only mean the vast majority in some cases.) This test guards us against claiming certain "doctrines" (which are nothing more than interpretations of the Bible) that are only local to our time period (i.e. the 20th-21st centuries) and our geographical location (i.e. America). (A good example of such an unorthodox doctrine is "dispensationalism," which has only been believed by a handful of Christians, almost completely in America, and only since about 1850. Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons could pass the test of orthodoxy as easily as dispensationalism.)

Well, let the lesson be this: The Bible has always been our source for knowing God and his truth. The Reformers didn't come up with this, and the myth that "sola scriptura" originated with them is simply not true. We must, therefore, recognize that the Church all throughout history and throughout the world has sought to be faithful to the Bible. We need to listen to these voices, or else we are sure to find ourselves as innovators of a new faith rather than as defenders of the faith.