Bonhoeffer's "Religionless Christianity"

Needed is Bonhoeffer's works and a good historical theologian's brain to pick. Alas, I'll settle for a brief meditation and any feedback my off-the-cuff remarks get. Keep in mind that for me this post stems very much from a preunderstanding.

Relevant reading.

There's a large bit of semantics involved in this discussion, but semantics are not the issue for Bonhoeffer. There are substantive issues for which I believe Bonhoeffer articulated with the most appropriate semantics options. They are not particularly misleading per se, rather misreadings kinda seem the fault of his readers' faithless interpretive reads. They either downplay his anti-religious or pro-faith themes. So his writings are difficult to read cause we are not ready to read them and because...well he's wrong, or he says a lot of right things for the wrong reason.

In trying to understand Bonhoeffer, Barth's basic understanding of religion seems to bring us to a close approximation of Bonhoeffer's meaning.

[R]eligion is the contradiction of revelation, the concentrated expression of human unbelief, i.e. an attitude and activity which is directly opposed to faith....

Religion is never true in itself and as such. The revelation of God denies that any religion is true, i.e. that it is in truth the knowledge and worship of God and the reconciliation of man with God. For as the self-offering and self-manifestation of God, as the work of peace which God himself has concluded between himself and man, revelation is the truth beside which there is no other truth, over against which there is only lying and wrong. If by the concept of a ‘true religion’ we mean truth which belongs to religion in itself and as such, it is just as unattainable as a ‘good man’, if by goodness we mean something which man can achieve on his own initiative. No religion is true....

This judgement means that all this Christianity of ours, and all the details of it, are not as such what they ought to be and pretend to be, a work of faith, and therefore of obedience to the divine revelation. What we have here is in its own way – a different way from that of other religions, but no less seriously – unbelief, i.e. opposition to the divine revelation, and therefore active idolatry and self-righteousness....

It is therefore a fact that we can speak of the truth of the Christian religion only within the doctrine of the iustificatio impii. The statement that even Christianity is unbelief gives rise to a whole mass of naïve and rationalizing contradictions. Church history itself is a history of this contradiction. But it is this very fact which best shows us how true and right the statement is (source; embolding mine).

BTW - iustificatio impii means justification of the ungodly. This is going to be disappointing to some, as it essentially means that Bonhoeffer is a hyper-Protestant (i.e. sole fide fanatic) and secularist. For the record, Barth counter-balances these insights. The point of bringing them up and not contextualizing them is that with Bonhoeffer you can't. Hence why in the letter he states that Barth started off good, but arrives at a religious restoration.

The value of secularism is while it does not nor can eliminate the divine revelation, it provides a scathing critique of religiosity. Secularism in this regard is a natural ally of revelation, not so much in its commitment to truth per se, but in its commitment to neutralizing religious expression. Bonhoeffer as is apparent by other remarks could care less about making the church relevant to his contemporary world and is highly critical of attempts to do such. Indeed, cultural relevancy is a type of religious renewal, even in a secularized form. Rather he sees a secular lifestyle and approach as genuinely better, in that it is both more honest and accurate to our human condition. It also opens the possibility of churches fulfilling their mission, which cannot be done with religion's inherent individualism. If anything secularism as is commonly espoused does not go far enough for Bonhoeffer, as it merely wishes to repress religious expression in the public life whereas Bonhoeffer wishes the secularizing effect to be more thoroughgoing.

The ideal then becomes for Christians to live etsi deus non daretur, as if there is no God. This notion for Bonhoeffer does need to be contextualized though for a proper reading, as he isn't betraying the gospel, making an attack on the institution of Church's existence, minimizing the authority of Scripture, or downplaying Christianity's myths. He's advocating a secularization, not godlessness. The implications of etsi deus non daretur move though beyond critiques of Christianese, religious displays, shared understandings, and other markers to a theological understanding of the relation of God and humans that is both profound and disconcerting, as well as humans' own self-understanding. Hopefully I'll write more of these two implications before the end of the world.

To the question of how he positively understands a religionless Christianity outside of God's relationship to humanity, it seems safe to say that Christianity is a hyper-Biblical Judaism. There's a stressed continuity for Bonhoeffer's historical hermeneutic, acknowledging obvious discontinuity as well. How he understands Judaism though is anti-metaphysical, and it is in a non-believing world with God. Religionless Christianity is participating in the life of the Church, but discarding its rot.

To the question of how he positively understands what it means to be a Christian, it is participating in the suffering of Jesus in the world. Again, I'll hopefully unpack this later, but briefly in contrast to piety or creedalism, Bonhoeffer understands it as existing for others without the hope of God's comfort. This includes engaging the status quo (which is godless) as well as actively ministering to others.

I think some of his claims and critiques are valid, but the ones influenced by his secularism are not, and don't get textually supported. Unfortunately Bonhoeffer didn't make it far enough to textually support some of these arguments, whereas others have who don't share his secular commitments have. The chapters to his book that he did write were lost, and before he could follow through with the project he was executed. I'd love some feed back especially from those familiar with his work as I'm probably wrong on a lot of points.

Letter of Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Eberhard Bethge

April 30, 1944

Dear Eberhard,

Another month gone. Does time fly as fast with you as it does with me here? I’m often surprised at it myself—and when will the month come when you and Renate, I and Maria, and we two can meet again? I have such a strong feeling that great events are moving the world every day and could change all our personal relationships, that I should like to write to you much oftener, partly because I don’t know how much longer I shall be able to, and even more because we want to share everything with each other as often and as long as we can. I’m firmly convinced that, by the time you get this letter, great decisions will already be setting things moving on all fronts. During the coming weeks we shall have to keep a stout heart, and that is what I wish you. We shall have to keep all our wits about us, so as to let nothing scare us. In view of what is coming, I’m almost inclined to quote the biblical dei, and I feel that I “long to look,” like the angels in 1 Peter 1: 12, to see how God is going to solve the apparently insoluble. I think God is about to accomplish something that, even if we take part in it either outwardly or inwardly, we can only receive with the greatest wonder and awe. Somehow it will be clear—for those who have eyes to see—that Psalm 58: 11b and Psalm 9: 19f. are true; and we shall have to repeat Jeremiah 45: 5 to ourselves every day. It’s harder for you go to through this separated from Renate and your boy than it is for me, so I will think of you especially, as I am already doing now.

How good it would seem to me, for both of us, if we could go through this time together, helping each other. But it’s probably “better” for it not to be so, but for each of us to have to go through it alone. I find it hard not to be able to help you in anything—except by thinking of you every morning and evening when I read the Bible, and often during the day as well. You’ve no need to worry about me at all, as I’m getting on uncommonly well—you would be surprised, if you came to see me. People here keep on telling me (as you can see, I feel very flattered by it) that I’m “radiating so much peace around me,” and that I’m “always so cheerful,”—so that the feelings that I sometimes have to the contrary must, I suppose, rest on an illusion (not that I really believe this at all!). You would be surprised, and perhaps even worried, by my theological thoughts and the conclusions that they look to; and this is where I miss you most of all, because I don’t know anyone else with whom I could so well discuss them to have my thinking clarified. What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today. The time when people could be told everything by means of words, whether theological or pious, is over, and so is the time of inwardness and conscience—and that means the time of religion in general. We are moving towards a completely religionless time; people as they are now simply cannot be religious any more. Even those who honestly describe themselves as “religious” do not in the least act up to it, and so they presumably mean something quite different by “religious.”

Our whole nineteen-hundred-year-old Christian preaching and theology rest on the “religious a priori” of mankind. “Christianity” has always been a form—perhaps the true form—of “religion.” But if one day it becomes clear that this a priori does not exist at all, but was a historically conditioned and transient form of human self-expression, and if therefore man becomes radically religionless—and I think that that is already more or less the case (else how is it, for example, that this war, in contrast to all previous ones, is not calling forth any “religious” reaction?)—what does that mean for “Christianity”? It means that the foundation is taken away from the whole of what has up to now been our “Christianity” and that there remain only a few “last survivors of the age of chivalry,” or a few intellectually dishonest people, on whom we can descend as “religious.” Are they to be the chosen few? Is it on this dubious group of people that we are to pounce in fervour, pique, or indignation, in order to sell them our goods? Are we to fall upon a few unfortunate people in their hour of need and exercise a sort of religious compulsion on them? If we don’t want to do all that, if our final judgment must be that the western form of Christianity, too, was only a preliminary stage to a complete absence of religion, what kind of situation emerges for us, for the church? How can Christ become the Lord of the religionless as well? Are there religionless Christians? If religion is only a garment of Christianity—and even this garment has looked very different at different times—then what is religionless Christianity?

Barth, who is the only one to have started along this line of thought, did not carry it to completion, but arrived at a positivism of revelation, which in the last analysis is essentially a restoration. For the religionless working man (or any other man) nothing decisive is gained here. The questions to be answered would surely be: What do a church, a community, a sermon, a liturgy, a Christian life mean in a religionless world? How do we speak of God—without religion, i.e. without the temporally conditioned presuppositions of metaphysics, inwardness, and so on? How do we speak (or perhaps we cannot now even “speak” as we used to) in a “secular” way about “God”? In what way are we “religionless-secular” Christians, in what way are we the “ek-klesia,” those who are also called forth, not regarding ourselves from a religious point of view as specially favoured, but rather as belonging wholly to the world? In that case, Christ is no longer an object of religion, but something quite different, really the Lord of the world. But what does that mean? What is the place of worship and prayer in a religionless situation? Does the secret discipline, or alternatively the difference (which I have suggested to you before) between penultimate and ultimate, take on a new importance here?

I must break off for today, so that the letter can go straight away. I’ll write to you again about in two days’ time. I hope you see more or less what I mean, and that it doesn’t bore you. Goodbye for the present. It’s not easy always to write without an echo, and you must excuse me if that makes it something of a monologue.

I’m thinking of you very much.

Your Dietrich

Science vs. Faith, Subterfuge?

We all heard it commonly said, or said frequently science the main producer of knowledge has replaced the role in explaining the world that faith previously held. And there are a whole host of discussions on this topic.

My contention is if anything it's a later development of what drove and continues to drive the abandonment of religious faith: the problem of evil coupled with the silence of God. Ignoring the silence of God...

The allegedly poor design of the universe was evidence of God's piss-poor design qualities, and such a blasphemous sentiment was the reason troubled followed these folks around.

The defenses of God's goodness though took the form of arguing that in fact the world was much better designed than we give it credit for, something Copernican astronomy and Newtonian physics readily attested too. Their depiction of God though, argued against His interfering with the natural order, which in turn especially shifted the blame from God to an inevitable consequence of the natural order, when those predisposed to question God's goodness were forced by science to readily accede.

What this did though was strengthen a deistic impulse, one which is felt by even the most fundamental of religious observers. Even those who still interpret spectacular natural evils (acts of God) are loathe to do such with common incidents.

Rules or Relationship?

Ultimately the Bible is not a book of rules. There most certainly are rules in the Bible, but their purpose is not to show us how good we are... because of course, none of us is good enough to be okay with God; only Jesus can fix our relationship with God. Rather, the instructions and commands and rules in the Bible, especially ones like this one in Hebrews, describe how life works best. For example...

*Raises eyebrow*. I always thought there were rules in relationships. In fact, the only relationships where there are not are the relationships of imaginative projections of our fantasies. Alas, the Bible is a testament to humanity and Israel's unfaithfulness to the commands and callings of God with severe warnings to the Church. The rules serve many purposes, not least of which is to show us how to be faithful in our relationship. So while rules w/out relationship might get us nowhere, relationship w/out rules gets us a bag on the doorstep and a note saying "Have a good life".

I'm serious about that imaginative projection. Relationships take place in real world interaction; otherwise it's all in one's mind, despite what one may believe.

It's not like I'm personally comfortable with rules. In fact it's precisely my uncomfortableness which accentuates my awareness of their existence. It's my own violation of implicit ones which creates the need for "talks" where explicit ones are laid out.

In her post Rules or Relationship on the issue of Sabbatarianism, my friend Renea wrote that "we lose ourselves, largely because we lose sight of God, we forget to be with him."

The chief historical temptation has been to forget God. It is in forgetting God that we become unfaithful. The question is not though of us losing ourselves but of us "mirroring" the surrounding culture. Israel was judged for its lack of distinctiveness as the people of God by appropriating the practices of its anti-shalom neighbors.

We've found ourselves in a bizarre time, when being religious is looked down upon while being somehow nebulously "spiritual" is good and respected. If the Church has been called though to be a holy people, then we are called to participate in the life of that Church. This means being religious.

Today we find ourselves desperately struggling with the consequential inconveniences this might place upon us. Framing the issue in a legalistic/antinomian context allows some to provide a solution for avoiding these tendencies. My concern is that this is a miscatagorization of the problem. The problem is the question itself needs repentance of. What working out our faith(fulness) means for us today is not that we need to contemporize our faith and practices for "new realities" but need to sanctify contemporary culture.

Legalism is as much a perversion as an accommodating lifestyle. The solution is not for oneself to individually negotiate the tension in the name of not forgetting God. The solution is to remember the Lord your God who has called the Church to honor him and carry out his will. The diversity is not how one's religion plays out in one's personal life; the diversity is in how our personal lives play out in the life of the Church. Looking for the other solution is tantamount to reassurances that all God really cares about is cheap rhetoric and finding our own personal way to live a good life or worse, care that only that we believe a handful of doctrines.

While these ritualistic practices are no longer prescribed and regulated by the Law; they do somehow magically find themselves implemented by faith-communities. While the life prescribed and regulated by the Law might be the shadow, participating in the life of the Church is the foretaste.

The question is not if one is being good or bad Christian, it's if one is meaningfully Christian at all. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. Without participation in the gift of Jesus within the church, "Christian" becomes just another label we use for self-description, albeit increasingly unpopular as we distance ourselves from from others for whom claim this label. Once "Christian" was a derogatory name for those believers practicing in the church of Antioch. If we're going to be applying labels, perhaps a more fitting one for these wishing to disassociate from Jesus' corporate body is a Christianist, a more purely ideological identification for believing in Christianism. If this sounds ludicrous, what is it about what it describes that makes sense?

This response ignores a lot of legitimate questions. What it's designed to do though is shift the theological impetus back to "Christ Resurrected" and "Repent, for the KoG is near".

And for the record I presently rarely go to church on Sundays.

Note for Kevin

As I told you earlier, "the theological [aspects] I'm not so sharp on."

One of the problems I had when reading the section Why Sacraments Are Not Signs, I felt that Leithart was confusing who the players were. And he did distinguish, but then he collapses that distinction by infusing both senses in sacramental signs and through the backdoor brings God back in. Moses circumcises, Abraham circumcises at God's command. These are about what we do to identify with the people of God. Israelite kept the Sabbath. What we do to sanctify ourselves. The signs elsewhere are about what God does, and yes through people, to prove Himself. While I agree with Leithart's point about signs having to be enacted, there's nothing "awe-inspiring" about the signs that we enact, at least not in the same way. Sacred, yes; miraculous, no. So someone might want to suggest that there is awe in the sense of a spirit of reverence and humility, and yes. But I'm talking about the sense of David Blaine WTF wonder. "Mighty" might be a bit of an overstatement. For me, imperceptibly at work might as well not be at all. So while God might be at work in "all things", we don't call "all thing" signs. Jesus was "established" via the sign of baptism, but that involved dove-like Spirit-descending and a voice from the sky. Signs alludes to a special type of work when God is a player.

Leithart though was one step ahead of my ignorance. Pp. 38-41 he moved into 1 Cor. 12.13, where he attempts to draw continuity with both the water-baptism passage earlier in the letter and the water-typology in the Exodus narrative. This continuity stems from the similarity of efficacy. Leithart then shows a harmony of the interpretation with Galatians 3. Moreover, he offers a literary argument that if "made to drink into one Spirit" does reference the Eucharist, then it stands to reason that comparatively "baptized into one body" also references water-baptism. There's the contextual argument that since the passage is dealing with the Church, it is therefore discussing the authorized entry rite. Finally and persuasively, he connects Spirit-baptism to water-baptism by showing how the later was considered the means of participation in the former (Act. 2.38). It would have been helpful if he had tightened his identification of "the gift" to Spirit-baptism (Act. 1.5), but oh well.

For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit (1 Corinthians 12.13 NASB).

While he arguably did successful argue for interpreting this as a literal baptism into the body of Christ, what he unfortunately left open was the portion about the Spirit's agency. The reason was that wasn't the focus of the section in the chapter, like it is here. I don't know enough Greek though or theology to argue one way or the other. *shrug* I got the sense though that we both interpret the agency issue similarly despite how he left it ambiguous.

Fyi - I dismissed his Reformed infighting arguments about Calvin and confessional arguments as annoying, insignificant, and a waste of ink. I don't think you're ever going to get me commenting on them from here on out except for their contributions to the history of ideas and interpretation.

Religious Violence: Jihad

The pattern I'm suggesting for understanding most early modes of warfare in Scripture is that Israel's primary moral consideration is whether to follows its Lord. God in turn fights the war. God conquers and delivers - the two most common motifs or "causes" for conflict. For the duration of fighting, God "proves" it is Him working and not the people through whom He fights.

So how do we know that the conflict we're reading about is in fact lead by God? What distinguishes a Biblical holy war from even say a God-sanctioned one? As mentioned God ensures the victory. There are signs enacted which demonstrate God's sovereignty. God also raises up or establishes leaders to communicate His will or execute his deliverance.

And prove Himself God does in the narratives through victory by Israelites walking around walls, bashing empty pots, seas parting and collapsing, the sun standing still, and slingshots. These are not merely improbable but defy our sense of the credible. Indeed, the Biblical interpretation is clear, the motif of "signs" serves to reinforce the theme that only by the power of God could these events transpire.

Holy wars though are fought in conjunction with God's chosen representatives, either godly kings, judges, or prophets, generally leading God's holy people. Typically there's a sign involved either in their calling or their establishment as leaders. One exception is Ehud who notably has nothing miraculous surrounding his story. He just shows up on the scene, assassinates by shoving a sword through the gut of the defecating Moab king, and then leads a revolt. The only allusion to any sorta God-connection is in a personal message from God to Eglon, which is not confirmed as such by the narration. While pretty cool, admittedly it does not fit the pattern with what I'm suggesting. *shrug* I think that's in part due to the shortness of the account, but you can imply it by the feel of the text. Make of that what you will.

If you're curious about Deborah, I'm not suggesting that the miracle was that Sisera eluded death by the Israelites only to be shamefully slain by Jael. The miracle was that Deborah prophetically laid it all out. Incidentally, Barak came to her under some kinda tree not a street corner like in the beautiful painting to your right. Her character though is introduced with the identity of a prophetess. So she has pre-established recognition as from God.

I don't think all the judges' warfare constitutes a religious jihad. I do think that the warfare of the 8 judges we have extensive accounts do (Moses, Joshua, Ehud, Deborah, Jephthah, Gideon, Eli, and Samuel). There are a few kings, David and Saul who meet these criterion as well as a few of the prophets. The prophets of YHWH are recognized as such by initially speaking in the name of God and then successfully predicting the unfolding of events, as opposed to those who merely presume to speak for the Lord (Deuteronomy 18.18-22). The false prophets though are always giving directives in contrast to God's true prophets. They say rebel when God says don't. They say we'll lose when God says fight. Both true and false prophets can operate as a sort of oracle. Some of these can simulate signs (the quintessential being Balaam), and are routed out due to their idolatrous directing (Deuteronomy 13.1-5).Notably all prophets are established via signs, although I can't really think of any war prophet who doesn't. The ones that don't tend to author books or be attributed as author and offer poignant social critiques. Also while signs establish the authority of a prophet, they never do so absolutely. Prophets are still humans and still step outside of God's will. They represent God but never perfectly, so switching off one's thinking cap in blind obedience is never commendable. If anything unthinking obedience is ascribed to listening to false prophets who tell the people what they wish to hear. Unthinking obedience connotes self-deception by God's people.

While we might know by the narrator which of conflicting perspectives is from YHWH, the people or leaders themselves have to sift through the ambiguity of competing claims. They have to made judgment calls with incomplete information. Typically though, a little bit of knowledge goes a long way in deciding whom to follow.

If you're wondering what the point of this post was, hopefully as events unfold it will be revealed. ;)

Megachurches and Snobbery

An old article that I completely forgot about until recently. Ultimately, for me a lot of the discussion comes down to snobbery, something else I've been thinking about more recently.

"The Great Sabbath"

Unwatched, the seventh dawn spreads,
Light smoothing out the sky, firm hands
Smearing a damp clay horizon-wide.
They wake, then lie unsurely side by side,
Knowing the ache and pull of novel bands,
The night’s new memories grinding in their heads,

Not understood, their bodies newly strange.
Outside, the new light soaks the ground;
They chill, turn in towards each other’s heat,
Then roll apart to test uncertain feet
On unknown earth. The dripping dawn around
Confirms the unformed fear. The world can change.

Outside an absence. While they learned and slept,
It had drawn off behind the sky’s stone face.
The world between their bodies and their palms
Is left to turn. The silence calms.
The morning’s news is plain; the centre space
Is empty. Under the trees where he once stepped

It is for you to go. Under the gaping sky
You wake, he sleeps, you make, he lies at rest.
He will not come again; last night you made
A future he will not invade.
Today the sun is buried, unexpressed;
You shall shape how to live and how to die.

You shall make change. He leaves no room
For his own hand; you shall be history,
You shall build heaven, you shall quarry hell.
No one shall say you have (or not) made well.
And, bored and pious, talk of mystery,
When weeds are choking up his tomb.

We make, he sleeps. Only his bloody dreams
Tell him the works of freedom on earth
Your liberty his flight, your future and his death.
He dreams your hell for you to draw your breath,
Out of his emptiness he lets your birth,
It is his silence echoes back the screams.

For they have not forgotten everything;
They wake and lie unsurely side by side
And listen to a laboured, steady breath,
Insistent, unconsoled, remembered death.
A small-hours passing on the turning tide,
Alone and never taught what key to sing.

He will not come again, not in the form
He walked on your first earth. But will you know
Him when he slips, a dosser, through your door?
Oh yes. Who else will touch the raw
Salt, unhealed memory of worlds ago,
Whispering, once you knew, once you were warm.

Listen for promises, fantasize for care,
And you will fill the neutral sky with lead,
Make chains to stop the quiet flow of chance,
Sell all your working for a stripper’s dance.
He chose his death; why can he not be dead,
And leave the bloody dreams at home elsewhere?

Drink up your tears; you can no longer need
The luxury of an old, cheap compassion.
To bury him may be a heavy cost,
But buys our future when today is lost,
Buys the clean stone from which we can refashion
Our image soiled by his remembered greed.

He asks his present back; the clay-daubed hands
Are picking at the dyke. Weep and you will unmix
The mortar, and the salt black sea will run
And catch and trip and drown us, one by one.
For walls are weaker than their strongest bricks.
Behind our stone, the moon-fed tide expands

To flood our fens. We walk with desperate care,
The locks are fragile and the wind is swelling,
Windows will rattle us awake, eyes wide,
To stare, lying unsurely side by side,
Quiet and fearful; there is no telling
What dreams will flesh out of the noisy air.

The stones had fallen down. We woke too late.
He has unlatched the house, smashed through the pains,
While we slept out our sixth and darkest night,
And taken back his gross seigneurial right.
Today he swills the cultivated plains,
Salting our clay; reclaiming our estate.

- Rowan Williams, The Poems of Rowan Williams

Rethink News: Sources IV

For Rebekah. Cont. from...

Alright, the fact that there's a sources iv, means I'm not calculating well enough or too much info. I feel like I'm an undergraduate again with those ambiguous projects utterly beyond the actual skill necessary to execute. That's what this series is. Luckily it's a blog and there's no grade attached. (What the hell do I care about grades again?). Anyways, the theme of this post is your theological blogs. Big shout out to Faulk and Huff for their suggestions, etc. There's a lot here so I'm gonna quickly go through them.

Ligonier Blog - Jason commented this in an earlier post. It's Ligonier Ministries blog and I know a few of you readers, B included, like them.

The BioLogos Foundation Channel This is more for Matt than you, as these guys espouse a Theistic Evolutionary viewpoint. This is not an RSS feed but a youtube subscription. The forum does have an RSS feed, but that contains a lot more junk than just their "Conversations" vid, which are 5 minute spills by various folks.

I recently started subscribing to Son of Hamas. Quickly Mosab Hassan Yousef was a part of Hamas turned Christian spy.

Helm's Deep - doesn't the little LOTR freak in you just love that title? Paul Helm is basically an Christian philosophy professor Huff turned me onto.

Credenda/Agenda - This mag is put out by Canon Press and has some big names from the Reformed tradition in it.

CanonWired - Also Canon Press, but this is exclusively short "Question of the Day" videos to Douglas Wilson.

Rachel Held Evans - In her words:

Charles Darwin said that the survival or extinction of an organism is determined by its ability to adapt to its environment. I think faith operates the same way. Changes in the environment--be they cultural or experiential—test the resilience of our faith and challenge us to rethink our most fundamental beliefs and values.

That’s what this blog is about. It's about how faith survives by continually changing. Its purpose is to reassess the fundamental elements of Christianity in the context of a postmodern environment…my insights coming from a small town famous for its fundamentalism, yours coming from wherever you may be.

I believe that knowing the answers isn't as important as asking the questions, and that following Jesus Christ is a lot less about being right and a lot more about, well, surviving. So even if that's all you're doing right now, feel free to join the conversation.

fors clavigera - James K.A. Smith has a few blogs, but this is the one I'd like you to get. He's a philosophy professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids. Of all the students to come from Christian colleges, probably this institution and Gutenberg in Eugene, Oregon, are the only ones I actually respect. He also has a blog where he just quotes passages from books he's reading that's kinda cool.

Blog and Mablog - Douglas Wilson's blog. I don't actually like it, and go on and off subscribing to it. Kev talked me back into it this last time.

Living Spirituality - Greg Laughery's blog. He's the director of the Swiss L'Abri.

Narrative and Ontology - This is probably one of the most popular theology blogs out there. In Philip Sumpter's words:

OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY: The "OT" bit references historical, literary, cultural issues (the particulars), the "theology" bit references the Big Picture (and why it matters). These two poles are expressed in the title. This blog concerns everything in between.

The Earth is Made of Atoms and Ideas - They've stopped posting on this as much, but it has some smart dudes from the old Derek Webb board that talk about anything.

The Politics of the Cross Resurrected - This guy is crazy, which is why I love him. We're symmetrically opposites.

The Strasbourg Inn - Done by Jacob Young, an x-Derek Webb board member.

In Hoc Signo - Kev could tell you more about this guy. DP Cassidy is Reformed minister in Texas.

Thinking through Christianity - a fun site. A friend of a friend's site. He's a medieval scholar and culturally engaged Christian. One of my favs.

cramer comments - a pacifist instructor of either theology or philosophy.

Faith and Theology - This is a forum that speaks to a large variety of theological interests. It's also one of the most popular theology blogs out there. I strongly recommend you give it a shot at least for a while.

speak what we feel: not what we ought to say - Put out by my friend Renea.

The Immanent Frame: Secularism, religion, and the public square - This is a fascinating forum. The first series they did was called, "a Secular Age" and was about Charles Taylor's book. Taylor fyi is probably the thinker I most wanna get into. Beyond him, it has some notable names including James KA Smith (Calvin Uni Prof.), Mark Lilla, others.

Since its inception in the fall of 2007, The Immanent Frame has played host to a variety of discussions, from critical exchanges on Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age and Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na`im’s Islam and the Secular State to extensive discussions of the complex role of religion in the public sphere, U.S. politics, cognitive science, higher education, international affairs and global politics, debates about sexuality and marriage, and political and intellectual criticism.

Most recently, The Immanent Frame has hosted discussion series on religious freedom and U.S. foreign policy, critiques and revisions of the concept of civil religion and its role in contemporary public life, and the emergence of a “strong program” in the sociology of religion, as well as interviews and critical colloquies on important recent texts, including Webb Keane’s Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter, Stefanos Geroulanos’s An Atheism that Is Not Humanist Emerges in French Thought, and Courtney Bender’s The New Metaphysicals: Spirituality and the American Religious Imagination.

Anyways, even if you don't like it, Matt might.

"Starting Before the Beginning"

For Christmas, Kev gave me a copy of The Baptized Body by Leithart focusing on the efficacy of baptism. For the record, I haven't read the book and didn't get him anything. Chapter 1: "Starting Before the Beginning" addresses common modes of understanding baptism. The issue is these popular modes are loaded with baggage rendering them problematic for understanding baptism biblically. We bring with us in our interpretation many assumptions which prevent us from accurately formulating an understanding allowed by the text. We're biased. So this chapter deals with these biases and their wider theological implications.

Leithart explains the basis for modern interpreters as an a priori rejection of a sensus literalis read. They divorce signs from signified and deny the power of water both naturally and in itself. After excluding what we "know" is impossible, they then seek out an alternative interpretation to what they are forced to affirm.

Baptism and the Real Me

Leithart goes one anthropological step further and critiques Reformed ontological assumptions, primarily its dualism. Whereas Catholics believe that grace is infused through baptism, Protestants deny anything external can affect our soul, our "real me". Both share the assumption that who we truly are is an incorporeal soul, denying the possibility that the world can affect the core of us. In contrast the Scriptures both cede to a mutual rationality and conceptualize the inner self physically. While a strong inner/outer distinction remains intact, it's flushed out radically different from the Christianized Platonism of today. Here external events can and do change who we really and fundamentally are.

Baptism and the Social Contract

Further compounding the problem is the use of the social contract theory as a heuristic for understanding. Humans are individualistically and atomistically conceived entering and dissolving contractual relationships while remaining largely unaffected (an integrity model of relationships). Moreover, the "I" is primary and fundamental to our social interaction. In reality though, we become an I after primarily and fundamentally being a "you". We are socially and existentially placed within a community prior to forming a sense of self.

Do Baptist Talk to Their Babies?

Leithart then humorously explores the inconsistencies of credo-baptist practices. On the one hand, they often selectively employ intellectual criteria in arbitrating a capacity for faith. On the other, tied to their conversionism is a hesitancy for imposing such a Christian identity which can only "authentically" be assumed via a conscientious choice on the part of the child.

Why Sacraments Are Not Signs

At last Leithart begins to get into it. He acknowledges that baptism is a sign; however, argues that traditional theological conceptualizations leave an impoverished account of signs. Signs cannot be reduced to mere receptacles for presencing something other than the sign, as Augustine did. They are also to be enacted by God or us, not primarily for some realm only accessible through imagination, but for this world. A purely pedagogical purpose is too limiting for understanding signs.

Why Sacraments Are Not Means of Grace

Leithart argues that this understanding often reflects a false metaphysical view that reverts to a type of mediation between God and humanity. Rather grace has no ontological status; it's a mere token, the gift of God's favor. The moment of personal encounter is obscured by a linguistic schizophrenia that's impersonalizing and formulaic. More specifically he characterizes it as "mechanistic", analogously inaccurate. Grace becomes either thingified or some emanating quality. The formula itself doesn't do much; it's a faux-explanation instilling a false sense of understanding that is superfluous, sloppy, and obnoxious. Heuristic benefits are overplayed and need to be strategically discarded. Baptism is a type (grace) of favor.

Why Sacraments Are Not Symbols

Symbols too are problematic. Typically symbols are understood as:

1) reality can be distinguished from its external form
2) reality is non-symbolic
3) reality underlies the symbols

In reality by contrast, the distinction is blurred and ambiguous. For instance all language is symbolic and metaphorical, even literal language. Moreover, reality is dependent on symbols, without which it's merely internally imaginary. We have to "shake hands", exchange emails, or some other vestige of actual contact. So for instance when explaining our relationships we typically describe the ritualistic extent of a relationship, e.g. "we slept together", "we've only talked a few times", "we went to high school together". Sometimes though, people do utilize phrases like "we just had this bond", "I prefer conversing with dead authors", or the classic example of a bleeding heart who empathizes with all humanity despite never lifting a finger to do good for anyone other than themselves.

Sacraments Are Rituals

Leithart recommends this by virtue of its emphasizing action, the nature of communal performance, and entailment of ideals. Ritual highlights realization, as opposed to accoutrements. Rituals are how we transform status, beyond mere legitimizing and recognition. Hermeneutically it expands the descriptive power, as well as explain nullification due to requirement stipulations or inappropriate performances contrary to the intended spirit. Rituals are non-magical, yet allow for the reality of a "privileged nearness denied others".

God, Time, and Change

The last section was a sort of housekeeping, where Leithart clarifies the issues at stake. He advocates a holding in tension contradictions, rather than resolving them to the denial of Biblical affirmations. Often specific theological notions of transcendence particularly undermine other Biblical testaments of God.

Leithart subtly suggests that folks arbitrarily interpret the truths they affirm either through a Hellenistic lens (which he doesn't call that; after-all, subtlety) pr a contemporary one (equally improper). These in turn lead to not just issues with the character of God and a softening of implications, but what amounts to existential problems with our very practice, e.g. the efficacy of prayer.

Weep

The Atheistic Socrates?

that those who study these things do not even believe in the gods (Apol. 18d).

Your fallible blogger here takes the view that yes, all the philosophers were "atheist", iows - they deny the civic deities.

Note: this definition is why early Christians for instance were charged w/ atheism.

Philosophers were either atheist or "closet atheist" paying lip service. I think Plato overcompensates with Socrates' character to establish he wasn't one so looking for "by Zeus", etc is overly simplistic. Whether the text is revisionist, I don't know and don't really care. The texts themselves are atheistic.

I'm not sure of the full contextual significance. In my head is the notion that "lip service" suffices, in other words as long as you perform the required piety, it doesn't matter what you believe. I do know this is the case later on with the Romans, but a lot changed in the time between. I'll check with my friendly neighborhood scholar and you check with yours.

Socrates however reinterprets everything. In the preceding dialogue Euthyphro which main theme is piety, Socrates mocks all conventional understandings of sacrifice. Instead the character of Socrates offers up a notion of "true" piety which is cultivating the soul, blah, blah, blah. Prayers and sacrifice are pointless, which is entailed by Athenian political notions of polytheism.

The reason why he being accused of atheism is due to the perception of this undermining the social order which requires the gods' good grace. Plato is saying my religious practice is more "truly" spiritual than yours will ever be and that you're just playing games.

Theological merit aside, the argument itself is unsatisfactory to the specific charge as it fails to meet the implied requirements. Meaning the two views are significantly different to the point that this "truer" view is atheistic. Meletus and the people aren't as dumb as Plato thinks they are.

Thoughts?

Isaiah 53

Guess I'm in a hip-hop mood? Huh, this came up in one of the blogs I follow. The translation is NLT and produced by GRIP.

Evangelicalism

Pop Quiz: Guess what metropolitan area or city has the most evangelicals according to Barna?

For some unknown reason I wanted to look at what constituted evangelicalism and came across Bebbington's work. It's weird as the search words my subconscious conjured for Google led me straight to him. Intrigued, I dug a little more, the familiarity ended up being from exposure when Moeller referenced him 6 years ago while I was ranting about Evangelicals' anti-intellectualism. It stopped my ranting and grabbed my attention then too, a new shiny toy concept. Anyways, Bebbington identifies four marks of conversionism, activism, biblicism and crucicentrism within Evangelicalism.

To clarify, let me state how I understand these terms. As neutral as possible, biblicism is a view of the Bible as the Word of God, a view of inerrancy, and a hermeneutic of literalism and illumination by the Holy Spirit (proof-texting, empty clichés, christocentric, and letterism). Conversionism is beating the dead horse view that humans need to have a personalized, transformative encounter w/ God culminating in this experiential, individualized relationship. It seems to range the spectrum from a formulaic "sinners" prayer, à la Graham to this "profound" quasi-mystical attunement w/ disgruntles (noticeably expectations not being met). As for activism, I actually prefer the term missional instead, but activism is evangelism, social work, and cultural engagement with an emphasis on confession of Jesus. Mind you, these are my words not his. Crucicentrism is an atoning power of the cross fixation. Some of what I read is that this is especially in the context of a Christocentric read of the Bible.

And this makes sense at one level. I think of Evangelical churches and I think of alter-calls at the end of services rather than the Eucharist. (Like to joke that Baptist don't actually have "church" except four times a year, they have chapel.). Sometimes their associative mental image is with JWs and Mormons. Revivals and tracts. There's conversations about Christians at least "being a witness" every time you meet someone and more typically manipulative strategies for "winning" friends and strangers to Christ (e.g. flirt to convert, okay bad one. A better one though is the "be their friend so that".). Forcing the Bible to speak to "all aspects of life" is common, and there's a lot of publicity about their refusal to cede on any point they interpret as contrary to the Word of God. Ironically, the term "missional" finds currency in critiques of the Evangelical church, many of which are overstated but some highlight the problematic nature of such a universal marker. It's problematic to characterize the Evangelical church by "activism" strictly as you have many exceptions like seeker-sensitive churches or loosely where the term loses any distinguishing capacity and so flexible as to easily fit even an atheistic hermit in the desert. I really feel at a loss here not being able to reference Bebbington's work for his understanding. Bebbington's definition stems from in-depth historical analysis; whereas I guess I just always thought of it as this offshoot of fundamentalism, whom more and more quit caring about their "sins", a trajectory it's still on. From what I've seen now though... NOPE. Way more complex and diverse, with a far richer history and more sophistication than merely different than mainline and black churches. Of course it has exploded wide open now with evangelicalism as a global phenomenon.

I'll comment later on other issues, but Bebbington was the only common definition with a lot of variations. The Barna Group has a similar 9-point criteria for identifying Evangelicals. One of these, a continuous personal commitment to Jesus, is a self-perceived existential condition. The other 7 though are reflective of a theological distinctiveness, plus an ambiguous one that I interpret as a qualitative experiential marker.

1. Heavenly afterlife because of confession and accepting of Jesus
2. Faith has a high priority.
3. Proselytization
4. Satan's existence
5. Eternal salvation through grace precluding works
6. Sinlessness of Jesus
7. Scriptural inerrancy
8. God's omnipotence, omniscience, and perfection as Creator and Lord

It should be noted that their criteria for identifying born-again Christians as opposed to a full-on evangelical is the existential condition and the first theological marker. Listen, we're all thinking it, so I'm just gonna come out and say it. Barna is a bunch of sectarian classist. Huh? You were thinking something different? Oops, guess it's just me. Alright, perhaps that's a good way to think of the congregation, but to start sifting through its members. I mean folks who've participated in Evangelical communities their whole life aren't "real" Evangelicals. Please. There needs to be a degree of disconnect in the categorization at the congregational level and its descriptive application at the level of persons. That's where it fails. Plus personally, I think the notion of 100% identification is absurd, realizing some of you may disagree.

A third approach is the World Evangelical Alliance's". This one requires a finer interpretative brush than I care to pull out, so if you want the full she-bang I suggest you read it yourself. All I'll say is that it starts off with this generic definition of "evangelical" and then unpacks that in a way that is more recognizably Evangelical. It's not very helpful, and I think the ecumenical tone is the most significant clue as to why they went that route. It does have going for it though before I poo-poo everything. It weaves through incidental and defining characteristics and beliefs in such a way that unlike Dr. Academic's and Mr. Ideologue's defs would resonate with more folks who sit in the pews and might personally articulate themselves. At least that's my guess. *shrug* The dilemma there is a susceptibility to self-awareness birthed from limited exposure of the Church. The danger is abuse for excluding other while the benefit is they're often times better equipped to recognize and acknowledge other Evangelicals. Unfortunately, this disassociation can especially extend to such superficial sentiments as the others aren't demonstrating the "walk" or due to feeling anxiety fear or are labelled "nominal".

Also examined urbandictionary.com. I picked "Evangelical movement" rather than "evangelical" cause the "evangelical" entries actually kinda made sense, which was not what I was looking for.

A group of fat, lazy, unintelligent, uninformed extreme right-wing conservatives overly concerned with pointless social issues and ignorantly blissful of the truly important matters at hand that could actually affect our lives.

-Class, explain to me the class structure of ancient rome.

-uhhhhh. . . Jesus?

-well, close enough.

This reflects my basic view.

Relevance

It'd be really cool to right now be make that Rush sound of paper ruffling in front of a microphone, no? Anyways, I think it's a cool sound effect.

Quiz Answer: If you guessed "Lost" Angeles, you're correct! In fact, they have more than New York, Chicago, and Boston combined. I personally am not ashamed to admit I didn't see that coming. You? Esther might of known, but I'm gonna make an educated guess and figure most of you didn't. The point being Evangelicals defy stereotyping.

As Barna argues there's a difference between media's portrayal of Evangelicals and their own subcultural reality and self-perception. As for media misrepresentation, they can take a ticket and get in line for all I care. Admittedly, it does influence profoundly outsider and self-perceptions, but that doesn't abnegate our responsibility for our own understanding. Still it'd help if they stopped using code. Call a conservative a conservative if that's what your fronting and stop underhandedly referring to Evangelicals as conservatives. More significant is the difference between self-perception and where they're actually at. Closing this gap increases understanding and channels the frustrations and areas of complacency voiced and quietly ruminated by those in the movement and its critics. IOWs it facilitates constructive responses to issues with Evangelicalism.

BTW - to give you an idea of how it shifts the landscape. Using Barna's definition only 8% of the population is Evangelical, with these having no denominational specificity (so they can be Coptics or Catholic nuns). Wow, that's unexpected as their criteria wasn't anything I didn't think most Evangelicals believed anyways. Pew with a lot of dancing puts it at 26.3%, barely above Catholics at 23.9%. Most media surveys rank it much higher based on purely self-identification. The issue of the term's ambiguity, rather than its fluitity, is that people then are more individually interpretative from isolated internalized experiences and viewpoints, media portrayals, and sloppy reasons.

So, what do you think an Evangelical is?

Some folks wanna exclude the Pentecostals, or at least Oneness Pentecostals. It seems everyone has an opinion, but the majority of charismatics and cessationist Evangelicals think they're under the same roof. Apparently the PCA is too, which surprised me. I don't know why since Schaeffer was and actively part of what would become the PCA. Soft idealization? Don't know why seriously. Interestingly, the PCA is the only denom affiliated with both the NAE and the NCC. The AM is only in the NAE, though they're in the Anglican Communion and thus by extension(?) in the NCC. (I'll get to the significance in a bit.

Part of the problem is I don't know enough. All four were crafted using criteria that functionally focused upon their implicit purpose. Any purpose I've got is a muddled, convoluted mess half of which is buried. There's no abductive element to my reasoning; they're just "not satisfactory", and I can't elucidate why. It does seem best to suggest a model which uses multiple definitions to target recognized groups we're certain of. So any culturally in an Evangelical church and a definition for those non-associated but clearly Evangelical minus those clearly not Evangelical in a church. This is different than the Barna methodology, which screens people through a theological filter. What I'm talking about is say excluding an Atheist or Catholic or Episcopalian who goes merely due to their spouse. Meanwhile criteria for an Evangelical church is weighed heavily by associative relations like the NAE and historical developments and less so purely for theological conformity. Of course, this isn't a strong differentiation, as often those historical developments are driven by doctrinal issues and acknowledgement by associative relations are underlied with theological similarity.

Importantly though, one shouldn't conflate Churches with members, as they not reflective in scale. This is a chief failure of Barna and Bebbington's criteria. They too strongly predefine the Evangelical and end up only being able to be challenged by those looking precisely as they expected. Rather judge the churches and allow the congregations to work it out. On the other hand, we should tighten our consideration of membership qualifiers to compensate for inflated rolls, and allow even tighter definitions for more nuanced and accurate labels.

Anyways, that's kinda some of my thoughts from the last week, take what you will. I think I've gone as far as possible with couch-potato research. Then next step is to pick up some more substantive sources than news articles and websites or do some research or get some feedback/opinions from other people, preferably those who actually know or are Evangelicals. Or I could get lucky and discover a breakthrough I've overlooked that has all the answers.

So, what your take on the whole Evangelical phenomenon? Comments on definition? Challenges facing the movement? Unfair caricature and portrayals? Anger, frustration, confusion? Anything I got wrong (factual corrections especially welcomed, trying to get a better sense of all this and as I'm not Evangelical)? Thoughts on movies, the World Cup? Which by the way, did anyone noticed they shortened the duration of those camera shots during the final? Huh‽ Must of done some homework and got their act together.

A descent read for disenchanted evangelicals.

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. (1 Peter 3.15 NASV).

Alright, so in my bio I have it that I like ancient texts (whatever that means), yet don't actually have anything in the blog. That’s just wrong. Some of you might wanna tune out the next week. So what exactly does the above verse mean? I'll tell you what I don't think it means: apologetics. "Wow," you might say, "That's kinda interesting since the word the author uses for "answer" is apologia and the word for reason is logos." Just so you know, apologies are "defenses" using rationality, and a logos is rational as opposed to an emotive (pathos) or ethical (ethos) type of rhetoric.

The main reason is it doesn't seem to jive with the rest of the thematic elements. As way of explanation though the term has morphed from a legal sense to one of justifying beliefs. Keep in mind, I'm no scholar, but during this time period apologia reflected a range of semantic possibilities connected to the notion of justification. The most notable example was Caesar Augustus' Res Gestae Divi Augusti, which was a propaganda piece defending his reign from expected "malignment" by posterity. In the Christian canon itself, it typically refers to the traditional legal sense. However, there are some places where it is more ambiguous or less strict. Paul defends his apostleship to the Church of Corinth. He also used it in "defense of the Gospel"; however, again there are places like here of ambiguity where the writer might be trying to allude to a less strict legal sense or possibly a more polemical sense.

A strict legal sense is not indicative as the person is accountable to "everyone" (presumably those outside the Church). Defense to authorities is actually a relatively frequent theme in the NT, so the author obviously could of specified if that was the intended scenario. However, the object of the defense is not the faith or beliefs or even the gospel, it is hope. Who is asking for this account? Evil-doers or those witness to Christian responses to evil-doers. In the surrounding verses when they speak of "fear", it's not "oh my word, what will they think", it's "oh my word, what are they gonna do next?" In that respect, an exhortation to a group largely unphilosophical to pull out their logic textbooks and copy of Pagan's Against Theist Quarterly is disjointive and incongruous. Rather than being overwhelmed, the author tells the Church to "sanctify Jesus in your heart", be prepared to give a defense, and have a "good conscience". It then goes on about the virtues of suffering for good. I don't get the image of the questioner suggesting, "Hey, let's sit down and have a nice cup of tea and discuss the philosophical merits of your beliefs."
The notion instead seems to be a range of emotions evoked from surprise at Christian behavior: curiosity, befuddlement, fear, anger, admiration, etc. These result in a desire to question these anomalies. And yes, even admiration. Early commentators admired the courage of the Church. Thought they were crazy as hell, true, but brave in the face of death! Today, we get why Christians are jerks online from other Christians. At least according to the author, you don't get points for suffering evil for evil, and it's not slander if it's true. And why are we supposed to? For love of enemies and hope in an inheritance blessing.

Well, that's different is a perfectly normal response from people. The directive contains an implicit assumption embedded in a passage dealing with suffering for doing good, the assumption that love and hope and suffering are present. The author is telling the Church to explain our "living apologetic" and our "hope beyond hope". So where lies the hope of Christians? The promise and work of God. The verse refers to a narrating of the gospel and proclamation of its promises. Tragic, lamentable, whatever, the verse doesn't have much relevance to Christians today. For one, few actually believe the Biblical hope, and fewer still believe in turning the other cheek and loving one's enemy. The entire book wasn't really written for bourgeois American WASPs, but rather for a subjugated people often finding themselves ostracized by their very own. While it might be flattering, it's also kinda insulting to others self-identifying with the implied audience, and increasingly annoying in a society where the Church has held not only a place of privilege but are instigators of many "evils".

Don't get me wrong, apologetics are fine and dandy. This verse simply isn't addressing that subject imo. There are others.

Just a Random Drunk Observation

"Afterall, what would be the virtue in faith if that in which we have faith could be known?" - Nicci in Phantom

After getting through the 10th book of Objectivist fantasy series Sword of Truth, I just wanted to point out in its caricatures, that people "of faith" tend to have a LOT of respect for those who have faith in the known. In fact, by point of reference faith in known things tends to be one the first things that apologists speak of, e.g. the faith in the chair you sit down in bs.

I might even suggest that those "of faith" tend to have more respect for those "knowledgeable" (for clarification's sake, that is facetious) than those who are blindly "faithful". Yes, there is a virtue in faith in the unknown and unknowable; however, that doesn't preclude faith in the knowable. More to the point, those who exclude faith in the unknown absolutely are dismissed; those whose dogmatic faith in Reason and the demonstratable are laughed at as the limited fools they are (although coward tends to be the most common accusation from people, one I'm not entirely sure is justifiable).

I'm not begging the question here in regards to the unknowable, known, etc, or the validity of the object of faith in many people which if any is curious is in fact plain wrong.

But to conclude on a paraphrase of Scot Adams, we are all idiots (or stupid), we are just idiots about different things.

An Excellent Article

"Our American Babylon"

The article traces the history of ideas in the theology of American politics to elucidate on both the past failures and resulting impoverishment (the author is Catholic) ecclesiologically as well as to plot a more traditional understanding for the political mission of the Church, which keeps in tension the transcendent vision and hope of Christians as while as their contextualized condition within the world. It's long, but well worth the read.

"the Queen reigns, but she does not rule"

Jesus is Lord. It was the first documented creed of the newly formed Christian community. Still the question remains, as to what exactly does this truth mean?

One track in answering recognizes that we live in a world in which being a Christian entails practicing a kingdom politics. Some British citizens in grappling with the current role of the monarchy in British politics have pithily coined the phrase which is the title of this post. It is a de facto assessment, which seems to share uncomfortable insights with the rule of YHWH over His people today, beyond the rule over all creation. This is reflected most readily if not on the lips of Christians then in our religious praxis.

The point is though it should not be the case, at least if not in the world then in the lives of those who identify with the Christian religion.

The state employs both coercive measures and ideological ones to ensure compliance ¹, to make the reality of such rule a fact. We instinctively recognize this type of power and politics. God's rule though is both more hidden and mysterious. The church's ideological methods seem both ineffective and insufficient for dealing with both modern Western experience and the even more problematic issue of our sinful historic existence. The criteria for this judgment being its fruits. It's people fluctuate between legalism and antinomianism, oblivious to the freedom of the resurrection. That is the freedom to be a certain kind of human and deliverance from the power of sin here and now. The church's betrayal of its revelations has left it ill-equipped in its ministry to the people, who too are not without fault.

A consequence has been what is politically tantamount to disloyalty and unfaithfulness to the crown by the people. We are not subjects to God as we even are to say the American republic (and make no mistake we are subjects to the government and not citizens of the United States of America.). This post is leaving much unexplored and left to flesh out even what is stated; however, as long as we are de facto loyal to our contemporary understandings over and beyond our God, we are in essence rejecting the rule of YHWH replacing it with objects and powers of influence and ideas which will instead guide us in this world. As long as autonomy is the descriptive paradigm for our lives, the church will necessarily proclaim the false truth against reality that Jesus reigns but does not rule.

We do not get points for sincere intentions or vain attempts at propitiation. All branches face rejection and abandonment as punishment for their disloyalty to their Lord and His word. We are to live on this earth carrying out our Lord's will as in heaven for as long as the thin veil separating the two exists. Despite YHWH's absence, we are still charged with politicking in a fashion representative as His emissaries.

An Evening of Millennial Discussion

In terms of the question, why is this debate on millennialism important? I don't know, except perhaps as a tie in in some vague sense to our own lives in the theo-drama (see here and here for a brief usage of that concept). Eschatology I could better explain the relevance of to practicing Christians; however, this is a good introduction an aspect of the debate. The first 45 minutes contains introductions to the speakers and the topic of eschatology; afterwards, is the discussion of millennialism. It's a free-for-all discussion with representatives from the three major camps, so enjoy. Note though, the premillennialist here is a classic or historic premillennialist and not a dispensational premillennialist, which is probably the one position most familiar to the general public but is unrepresented here at this table.



Thanks to Kev for turning me on to it.

Creationism with Ricky Gervais

A few words from St. Augustine in A Literal Interpretation of Genesis to justify the theological tag:

It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are.

That was what? Over 1,500 years ago? Christians are generally, obviously ahead of the curve.