The latest book that I picked up is called “Authority to Heal” and it’s written by Ken Blue. The basic idea behind the book can be captured by the questions on the front cover, which I assume it attempts to answer: “Does God heal today? Why are some healed and some not? Isn’t healing sometimes against God’s will?”
From what I can tell, Blue’s discussion of healing is specific to the idea of a healing ministry where people actively seek to pray for as many people as possible to be healed – mainly through one-on-one interaction. There is an account in the introduction of various healing ministries in which he’s participated, with real live miracles and real live people not knowing how to respond. Further, Blue himself has experienced healing – and has had to change his theology as a result.
The shorthand explanation for why I’m reading the book – because its immaterial to what I want to talk about – is that I am curious about the subject, the evidence for such healing ministries (and thus an assessment of their plausibility), and because I recently have come to know some people that have been a part of healing ministries. As such, I have some good personal reasons for investigating the matter, in addition to the fact that I think healing could be a powerful witness to God’s power for both Christians and non-Christians alike.
What I plan to talk about is the first chapter, which seems to be an attempt to answer the last question above: “Isn’t healing sometimes against God’s will?” I have never encountered anyone who took this view, but apparently Blue (and some people that I know) has encountered Christians who actually reject the idea of being healed because they believe that their sickness or condition is God’s will. Now this apparently is something that is specific to sickness, injury, or similar situations, where people are suffering and believe that God has brought the suffering upon them for the sake of personal growth.
Blue thinks this is a confusion, which he traces back to the days of the early Christian Church (2nd – 4th centuries A.D.) in which suffering from persecution was highly esteemed and gained the sufferer a privileged status. When Constantine become emperor of the Roman Empire in 306 A.D. and required religious tolerance through the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D. When the persecution decreased, Christians began seeking other forms of suffering through which to achieve spiritual growth and, apparently, higher status in their communities as a result. Sickness eventually came to be viewed as a means of achieving maturity, and thus healing was discouraged.
Blue’s point in all of this is that this misunderstanding of the nature of sickness developed into a confusion of sickness and suffering from persecution. Blue maintains that there is a very stark contrast between these two ideas, and it can mainly be seen in the appropriate attitudes towards the two kinds of suffering. If someone suffers as a Christian, he is to count it as a blessing because it is a mark of true discipleship (c.f. 1 Peter 4:12-16 where suffering as a Christian is contrasted with suffering as a wrongdoer).
So if one knows that he is suffering as a Christian, that is a cause for rejoicing. This is not so with sickness. Nothing about suffering from illness implies that one is a sincere follower of Christ – which is obvious when we are reminded that non-Christians suffer from illness as well. But some people apparently do think that sickness is an indication of true discipleship in the same way as suffering related to persecution. This leads to all sorts of problems. People can become arrogant or proud of themselves in their suffering, and they can begin to see sickness itself as a fundamentally good thing rather than an evil that is not a part of God’s Kingdom.
There is one catch in all of this. Often times the results and circumstances of sickness and those of suffering from persecution can be pretty similar. I can imagine a scenario in which one is suffering from persecution, believing it an indication of his discipleship in following Christ, when in fact the two are unrelated. Indeed, Blue mentions precisely this on p.22-23 where he talks about the martyrdom cults of early Christianity wherein high status could be gained by dying at Roman hands for the sake of Christ. Surely it is possible for someone to die a martyr and not be a true follower of Christ – even if they claim to be and sincerely think that they are. Thus, just as suffering from sickness may not be an indication of true discipleship, so I think suffering from persecution can be the same way.
Further, I know that many people have experienced periods of intense growth in their relationship with God through sickness. Thus sickness can be used by God in the life of a true disciple of Christ to increase his or her maturity.
In closing this point, it would be important to summarize the state of the argument. There is no guarantee that suffering from either sickness or persecution is doing related to one’s genuine faith in Christ, while it is possible for God to use both in the lives of believers to mature them. From what can be gathered about sickness and persecution in the Bible, only the latter has a strong association with true discipleship. Therefore, we are best to not make the same assumptions about sickness in relationship to sincere belief in Christ.
Now to the practical. I think that there is a very straightforward approach towards responding to people who don’t want to be healed. If the issue is one of God’s will, then there is a very direct question to be asked here: If you trust that God knows what he is doing in making you sick, would you not trust him all the same if he made you well? Only God can heal you miraculously, and so if it is his will that you be sick, then only by his will can you be made well. In either case, the result would be the will of God. I do not think that it demonstrates a lack of trust in God to seek healing for sickness – in fact it may be the catalyst for far more change that the sickness ever brought about. That this is a possibility – that healing may bring about more good than change – suggests that the humblest and most trusting attitude that we can take towards God is to follow the Biblical model as we best understand it, and to make our pleas in acknowledgement that he is trustworthy no matter the results.
I fear that many may shrink from healing because they don’t believe that God is active to perform miracles and demonstrate his power today. Further, they would rather suffer in their condition than pray to God, and have to trust him no matter the results. Indeed, it may be quite traumatic to desire something so greatly and for God to not respond as we would wish. Our response might be anger, distrust, rebellion, etc., and I can only say that I have a fair amount of my own experience with each of these. However, our God is very big God, he is not insecure and his feeling aren’t easily hurt, and he responds with grace and humility towards his people, therefore he is able to bare the brunt even of our worst attitudes towards him. I worry that being afraid of distrusting God may be the greatest obstacle that many people face in learning to trust him more.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Does God Specially Create Our Desires?
The title says it well enough. I answer this question, but it takes awhile. This post is not very polished, and I didn't mean it to be, because I don't have enough time right now to reflect on and further develop these ideas. But I thought the discourse was worth posting.
Today I was reading prayer project for one of my classes, which is basically a kind of guided-prayer homework assignment. The idea behind today’s particular prayer journal is to gain a greater sense of what God’s purpose for your life might be through reflection on your strengths, desires, influences over the course of your life, passions, etc. On the directions for this prayer project, there is some interesting theology smuggled in, taking the form of an instructive for prayer, and here is a small but relevant excerpt:
We do need to pay attention or our likes, dislikes, joys, etc., as [God] created them and they may point us to His purpose for us.
The idea, then, is that God creates our desires, joys, etc.
I, for one, have two problems with this statement: 1) It is either trivially and therefore not interestingly true, and 2) If the author of the statement is shooting for more than mere triviality, then I do not know how to make sense of it, because all of the options as to how I might interpret it seem to make little sense.
Let’s examine the first of these – that the statement is trivially true. What I mean by this is that I think there is a certain obvious sense in which it is true that God has created our desires. Actually, there really are two, both of them quite trivial. The first is that God is the ultimate cause of all that exists, therefore by indirect causation he has created the desires of each of his followers – and everyone else who exists. The second sense of triviality is that God does give people new desires and new hearts when he redeems them and cleanses them through Christ’s atoning sacrifice. This is fairly obvious from 2 Cor. 5:17 and the “old man/new man” comparison of Ephesians 4. These desires may even be specific to certain ministries that God has called people to – i.e. some people enjoy public speaking because they were called to be Evangelists.
Both of these notions to me seem quite obviously true. The second one is especially obvious because God is seeking to redeem his creation, and to redeem all of it. He doesn’t want people who simply know what they should think, love, hate, do, respect, admire, enjoy, etc., he wants people who actually do think, love hate, admire, enjoy, respect, etc., in the right way. I may know that I should hate stealing, but I might also still continue in it. If I actually came to hate it, then my heart would be changed, and I would have new desires – i.e. desires to not steal in circumstances that before would have produced the opposite desire. Thus, God gives people new desires, and not simply a knowledge of what their desires should be (although I have no idea how he actually does this, it’s a bit mystical, but not too much so.)
If we move beyond triviality into something more substance, then the possibilities expand endlessly into the horizon. However, it is here that a lot confusion could be stirred up. Let’s go with the interpretation of “God creates our desires” that came to my mind immediately as I was reading in order to illustrate the confusion that I’m talking about.
Imagine, then, that God is orchestrating his plan of creation before he has actually created us. Of course this is a bit of an anthropomorphism, but I don’t think that any substantial difficulties are created by describing the process in this way. We know from Ephesians 1:4 that God has “chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world.” Being chosen in Christ means being a part of Christ’s body – the Church. Being a member of the Church (with a big “C” signifying the universal Christian church of all believers everywhere) means having a role to play (c.f. 1 Cor. 12 and Paul’s discussion of Spiritual gifts, and that each is a distinct role, but that all are equally important – or at least I would argue). Therefore, God gave us desire before the foundation of the world according to the roles that he would have us play. In this sense, then, God has created and instilled in us our particular desires.
I have some problems with this view. The first is that it seems to strip away the individuality of the desires – the idea that God gave someone a specific desire because that desire befitted that person in some way. If we picture God dolling out desires before the foundation of the world, then we must also imagine that he is giving them to people who as yet do not have desires. If they had desires, then this would mean that God did not create this desires. Of course we are speaking hypothetically, because the people do not exist yet, but we can construct some fictional dialogue in God’s mind in order to make my point clearer:
God thinking to himself: “Here is John Q. Preacher. As yet Mr. Preacher does not exist, but is merely a person that I plan to create at some point in time. I plan to make Mr. Preacher a preacher, therefore I will give them desires to study, to know the truth, and to communicate it effectively to others. But, surely giving someone desires is not all to their personality – I need to give him tendencies, talents, attitudes, dispositions of behavior, certain physical qualities that will shape him, etc. As of yet, however, I have not given Mr. Preacher any such characteristics. All that can be said about him is that he will be a male. I am working with a blank slate, and could just as easily give these desires to Mary. J. Mercyworker, or James D. Theologian. I could give this personality to Mr. Theologian, or I could give it to Mr. Preacher. But I have already decided to make Mr. Theologian a theologian, so I will make Mr. Preacher a preacher, even though I could have done the opposite.”
This scenario seems to make God’s giving out desires a bit arbitrary. Or at least not in any way strongly related to the person to whom the desires are given. Surely God could give Mr. Preacher his desires because God wants X number of preachers – but this has little to do with Mr. Preacher, his talents, attitudes, behavioral tendencies, etc.
I would submit that a different scenario, which doesn’t picture God as creating our desires from the foundation of the world, is actually more satisfactory and still consistent with the two trivially true affirmations of this notion. On this alternative, we could stipulate that people’s desire, attitudes, tendencies, and their personalities in general are primarily dependent upon their parents – that is, they are inherited. People primarily inherit their desires, and God does not need to specially create them for every person. In this case, it is still possible that God specially creates certain desires or other personality traits in certain individuals for the sake of a specific task (say, certain leadership qualities in David that he would not have possessed if God had not created them), but that would not be the norm.
Thus people receive from their parents certain personality traits, and the rest is shaped through developmental processes. If someone becomes a Christian, then God is able to work with that individual to change his or her heart in the ways described above: So that they learn to put off the old man, put on the new man, and become fully redeemed by loving and hating, doing and enjoying, experiencing and knowing – all appropriately.
Further, God may also give to the person some specific and specially-created desires after he or she becomes a Christian. This would be nothing short of miraculous, even if it took time to develop. Further, the desires that God develops in people would be fitting to the personalities that people had inherited from their parents – that is, the person would already be in place, and God would be creating desires in accordance with how that person is – rather than creating that person around certain desires that God wishes them to have. Thus if I inherit emotive and withdrawing tendencies from my parents, I may become a poet (no offense to any poets) or perhaps some kind of novelist (I can make these comments because I have such tendencies). Those natural desires which may not have been particularly constructive in their unaffected state, due to inheritance, can become tools and blessings for God’s kingdom as he reshapes the heart of the person towards using them, and enjoying them, in the best possible manner.
As I said, this position also allows for the trivial sense of “create” to be true – because it allows that God develops the desires of the hearts of his people. Further, I think it avoids a lot of complicated philosophical speculation not necessarily suited to a Prayer Project.
Today I was reading prayer project for one of my classes, which is basically a kind of guided-prayer homework assignment. The idea behind today’s particular prayer journal is to gain a greater sense of what God’s purpose for your life might be through reflection on your strengths, desires, influences over the course of your life, passions, etc. On the directions for this prayer project, there is some interesting theology smuggled in, taking the form of an instructive for prayer, and here is a small but relevant excerpt:
We do need to pay attention or our likes, dislikes, joys, etc., as [God] created them and they may point us to His purpose for us.
The idea, then, is that God creates our desires, joys, etc.
I, for one, have two problems with this statement: 1) It is either trivially and therefore not interestingly true, and 2) If the author of the statement is shooting for more than mere triviality, then I do not know how to make sense of it, because all of the options as to how I might interpret it seem to make little sense.
Let’s examine the first of these – that the statement is trivially true. What I mean by this is that I think there is a certain obvious sense in which it is true that God has created our desires. Actually, there really are two, both of them quite trivial. The first is that God is the ultimate cause of all that exists, therefore by indirect causation he has created the desires of each of his followers – and everyone else who exists. The second sense of triviality is that God does give people new desires and new hearts when he redeems them and cleanses them through Christ’s atoning sacrifice. This is fairly obvious from 2 Cor. 5:17 and the “old man/new man” comparison of Ephesians 4. These desires may even be specific to certain ministries that God has called people to – i.e. some people enjoy public speaking because they were called to be Evangelists.
Both of these notions to me seem quite obviously true. The second one is especially obvious because God is seeking to redeem his creation, and to redeem all of it. He doesn’t want people who simply know what they should think, love, hate, do, respect, admire, enjoy, etc., he wants people who actually do think, love hate, admire, enjoy, respect, etc., in the right way. I may know that I should hate stealing, but I might also still continue in it. If I actually came to hate it, then my heart would be changed, and I would have new desires – i.e. desires to not steal in circumstances that before would have produced the opposite desire. Thus, God gives people new desires, and not simply a knowledge of what their desires should be (although I have no idea how he actually does this, it’s a bit mystical, but not too much so.)
If we move beyond triviality into something more substance, then the possibilities expand endlessly into the horizon. However, it is here that a lot confusion could be stirred up. Let’s go with the interpretation of “God creates our desires” that came to my mind immediately as I was reading in order to illustrate the confusion that I’m talking about.
Imagine, then, that God is orchestrating his plan of creation before he has actually created us. Of course this is a bit of an anthropomorphism, but I don’t think that any substantial difficulties are created by describing the process in this way. We know from Ephesians 1:4 that God has “chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world.” Being chosen in Christ means being a part of Christ’s body – the Church. Being a member of the Church (with a big “C” signifying the universal Christian church of all believers everywhere) means having a role to play (c.f. 1 Cor. 12 and Paul’s discussion of Spiritual gifts, and that each is a distinct role, but that all are equally important – or at least I would argue). Therefore, God gave us desire before the foundation of the world according to the roles that he would have us play. In this sense, then, God has created and instilled in us our particular desires.
I have some problems with this view. The first is that it seems to strip away the individuality of the desires – the idea that God gave someone a specific desire because that desire befitted that person in some way. If we picture God dolling out desires before the foundation of the world, then we must also imagine that he is giving them to people who as yet do not have desires. If they had desires, then this would mean that God did not create this desires. Of course we are speaking hypothetically, because the people do not exist yet, but we can construct some fictional dialogue in God’s mind in order to make my point clearer:
God thinking to himself: “Here is John Q. Preacher. As yet Mr. Preacher does not exist, but is merely a person that I plan to create at some point in time. I plan to make Mr. Preacher a preacher, therefore I will give them desires to study, to know the truth, and to communicate it effectively to others. But, surely giving someone desires is not all to their personality – I need to give him tendencies, talents, attitudes, dispositions of behavior, certain physical qualities that will shape him, etc. As of yet, however, I have not given Mr. Preacher any such characteristics. All that can be said about him is that he will be a male. I am working with a blank slate, and could just as easily give these desires to Mary. J. Mercyworker, or James D. Theologian. I could give this personality to Mr. Theologian, or I could give it to Mr. Preacher. But I have already decided to make Mr. Theologian a theologian, so I will make Mr. Preacher a preacher, even though I could have done the opposite.”
This scenario seems to make God’s giving out desires a bit arbitrary. Or at least not in any way strongly related to the person to whom the desires are given. Surely God could give Mr. Preacher his desires because God wants X number of preachers – but this has little to do with Mr. Preacher, his talents, attitudes, behavioral tendencies, etc.
I would submit that a different scenario, which doesn’t picture God as creating our desires from the foundation of the world, is actually more satisfactory and still consistent with the two trivially true affirmations of this notion. On this alternative, we could stipulate that people’s desire, attitudes, tendencies, and their personalities in general are primarily dependent upon their parents – that is, they are inherited. People primarily inherit their desires, and God does not need to specially create them for every person. In this case, it is still possible that God specially creates certain desires or other personality traits in certain individuals for the sake of a specific task (say, certain leadership qualities in David that he would not have possessed if God had not created them), but that would not be the norm.
Thus people receive from their parents certain personality traits, and the rest is shaped through developmental processes. If someone becomes a Christian, then God is able to work with that individual to change his or her heart in the ways described above: So that they learn to put off the old man, put on the new man, and become fully redeemed by loving and hating, doing and enjoying, experiencing and knowing – all appropriately.
Further, God may also give to the person some specific and specially-created desires after he or she becomes a Christian. This would be nothing short of miraculous, even if it took time to develop. Further, the desires that God develops in people would be fitting to the personalities that people had inherited from their parents – that is, the person would already be in place, and God would be creating desires in accordance with how that person is – rather than creating that person around certain desires that God wishes them to have. Thus if I inherit emotive and withdrawing tendencies from my parents, I may become a poet (no offense to any poets) or perhaps some kind of novelist (I can make these comments because I have such tendencies). Those natural desires which may not have been particularly constructive in their unaffected state, due to inheritance, can become tools and blessings for God’s kingdom as he reshapes the heart of the person towards using them, and enjoying them, in the best possible manner.
As I said, this position also allows for the trivial sense of “create” to be true – because it allows that God develops the desires of the hearts of his people. Further, I think it avoids a lot of complicated philosophical speculation not necessarily suited to a Prayer Project.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
"Adventures In Missing The Point" Ch.1 and Other Musings
Tony Campolo (http://www.tonycampolo.org/) and Brian McLaren (http://www.brianmclaren.net/) wrote a book together in 2003 called “Adventures in Missing the Point.” This is the first work by Campolo that I have read, but from what I can tell he seems fairly conservative in his Christian views (he believes in a literal, personal, and very active Satan, c.f. p.29). Brian McLaren is a leading representative of the Emerging Church (http://emergingchurch.info), and even more selectively within this camp, he is a member of Emergent Village (http://www.emergentvillage.com/), which as far as I can tell, is simply a group of people attempting to practice Christianity as they understand it (“in a postmodern context”).
But these associations really tell you little about McLaren. I have read only one of his other books, which I think is his best known, called “A Generous Orthodoxy,” in which he says a lot of things that make Evangelical Christians nervous. One example: Brian McLaren is not very clear on some points of his theology, if you ask him if he believes in Hell, he will probably respond with, “Why do you ask the question?” I think that McLaren’s point with not answering these questions directly is to point out that sometimes Evangelicals have their priorities off kilter. They tend to proceed by “checklist” Christianity wherein they ask you some questions and if you give the right answers then you’re “one of us.”
There is a problem that arises, however, and it’s that sometimes certain Christian authors, speakers, and scholars don’t quite grasp what McLaren is doing. This is probably to be expected, because McLaren has an M.A. in English (http://www.brianmclaren.net/archives/about-brian/) and realizes how interactions, scripts, languages, etc., can be used to make a point through much more indirect means than the way that a lot of theological debate is done in seminaries today (i.e. look at the way that Jesus answered questions with questions). Yet, I think it would help McLaren to just come out and actually give a straightforward answer every now and then. So there is room for improvement on both sides.
In any event, I liked the book and think a good presentation of its overall message is “chill out, yo” (if you can imagine a California surfer brushing wavy blonde hair out of his eyes as he says it).
So this other book, “Adventures in Missing The Point,” is apparently about where McLaren and Campolo think that many Christians in the U.S. have missed the point on various subjects. In the intro they claim to be all about seeing their own shortfalls, which is encouraging. And they also plan to proceed by means of a respectful and polite dialogue, without insulting each other, and I believe this could be incredibly instructive to many Christian authors, and even many scholars, who attack and accuse each other, bite and devour, and through doing so gain no nourishment of any kind.
The first chapter to the book is about Salvation (with a capital S indicating being saved from the consequences of sin by Jesus’ atoning sacrifice) – which is a very heralded word in the Christian community. It is written by McLaren, and I think it has many strong points, among which are particularly:
1. That Salvation is more than a point-in-time, moment of conversion (p.26-27 of AMTP). It may indeed include this (or something like it), and this may be a necessary part of Salvation (as Campolo would say), but please people, don’t stop there. Somehow, becoming conformed to the image of Christ is supposed to be thought of as part of one’s Salvation (c.f. Philippians 2:12-13 where Paul, in one of his rarer moment of clarity, says exactly this). Sometimes we use the word “Salvation” to denote “conversion” – or that moment-in-time thing where you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior. But Paul actually uses the word “salvation” (Grk. soteria) here. So whether we used the word “Salvation” to denote conversion, or to talk about both conversion and the subsequent becoming-like-Christ that happens, it seems as though we are supposed to think of them as two aspects of the same thing. I don’t know how exactly, but I think that’s the idea.
1.5 (Because this is really a specifying of point 1): That the something-else of Salvation beyond conversion is about fallen, broken, and corrupted and evil human being becoming God’s true humanity (p.25). This means human beings that have new hearts that love good and hate evil, that put Got first, and that appreciate his creation. There are so many different ways of saying this, actually, and one could go and write some nice poetry about it if they wanted, but that’s the basic idea.
1.7 That part of the reason for this Salvation is so that human beings live with the joy and absence of evil that God originally intended for them (p.20, I think this point can be seen where McLaren gives Paul’s answer to the question about going to heaven, because McLaren thinks that Paul primarily wanted people to experience the joys of salvation). The fact is that evil has destroyed the goodness and joy to be found in God’s created order, and the reason that God intends to set the world to rights is for the benefit of his people (and I would add for his own sake as well, and perhaps throw in some stuff about punishment and justice, but I am mainly focusing McLaren for now).
Two Weak Points:
1. That emphasizing the experiential-benefits of Salvation seems to detract from the responsibility or task-structured nature of Salvation. I think that Paul, in his letters, is very concerned to see his congregations living appropriately (c.f. all of 1 Corinthians, but some nice illustrations can also be found in approx. Phil. 2:1-4, 2:12-15, 4:3-9). Paul seems less concerned about people experiencing a joy that accompanies them following their responsibilities and gaining new hearts (c.f. Ephesians 4:17-32), than he is with these changes actually taking place. Also, I think that Jesus is very insistent that he is the issue – not people or their joy or happiness. It is what people do with Jesus that matters most, not anything else (c.f. Matthew Ch.10 for a lot of material along these lines). It is not that joy is unimportant, or not to be sought after, but I think that an independent notion of “Christian responsibilities” which comes with the very idea of being a “Christian” provides two additional things: 1) a motivation for acting and 2) a moral standard.
2. Not enough said about individual responsibility before God and Salvation from the consequences of sins. I am not accusing McLaren of not believing in these things, only that they are essential to an accurate understanding of Salvation, and that I did not find them in Ch.1. Perhaps, however, I am not the greatest sleuth when it comes to reading McLaren’s views, and it is all there in some rather subtle language. I am open to that possibility.
So I think that McLaren is much better on this issue than many Evangelicals would give him credit for, but that there were a few elements
But these associations really tell you little about McLaren. I have read only one of his other books, which I think is his best known, called “A Generous Orthodoxy,” in which he says a lot of things that make Evangelical Christians nervous. One example: Brian McLaren is not very clear on some points of his theology, if you ask him if he believes in Hell, he will probably respond with, “Why do you ask the question?” I think that McLaren’s point with not answering these questions directly is to point out that sometimes Evangelicals have their priorities off kilter. They tend to proceed by “checklist” Christianity wherein they ask you some questions and if you give the right answers then you’re “one of us.”
There is a problem that arises, however, and it’s that sometimes certain Christian authors, speakers, and scholars don’t quite grasp what McLaren is doing. This is probably to be expected, because McLaren has an M.A. in English (http://www.brianmclaren.net/archives/about-brian/) and realizes how interactions, scripts, languages, etc., can be used to make a point through much more indirect means than the way that a lot of theological debate is done in seminaries today (i.e. look at the way that Jesus answered questions with questions). Yet, I think it would help McLaren to just come out and actually give a straightforward answer every now and then. So there is room for improvement on both sides.
In any event, I liked the book and think a good presentation of its overall message is “chill out, yo” (if you can imagine a California surfer brushing wavy blonde hair out of his eyes as he says it).
So this other book, “Adventures in Missing The Point,” is apparently about where McLaren and Campolo think that many Christians in the U.S. have missed the point on various subjects. In the intro they claim to be all about seeing their own shortfalls, which is encouraging. And they also plan to proceed by means of a respectful and polite dialogue, without insulting each other, and I believe this could be incredibly instructive to many Christian authors, and even many scholars, who attack and accuse each other, bite and devour, and through doing so gain no nourishment of any kind.
The first chapter to the book is about Salvation (with a capital S indicating being saved from the consequences of sin by Jesus’ atoning sacrifice) – which is a very heralded word in the Christian community. It is written by McLaren, and I think it has many strong points, among which are particularly:
1. That Salvation is more than a point-in-time, moment of conversion (p.26-27 of AMTP). It may indeed include this (or something like it), and this may be a necessary part of Salvation (as Campolo would say), but please people, don’t stop there. Somehow, becoming conformed to the image of Christ is supposed to be thought of as part of one’s Salvation (c.f. Philippians 2:12-13 where Paul, in one of his rarer moment of clarity, says exactly this). Sometimes we use the word “Salvation” to denote “conversion” – or that moment-in-time thing where you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior. But Paul actually uses the word “salvation” (Grk. soteria) here. So whether we used the word “Salvation” to denote conversion, or to talk about both conversion and the subsequent becoming-like-Christ that happens, it seems as though we are supposed to think of them as two aspects of the same thing. I don’t know how exactly, but I think that’s the idea.
1.5 (Because this is really a specifying of point 1): That the something-else of Salvation beyond conversion is about fallen, broken, and corrupted and evil human being becoming God’s true humanity (p.25). This means human beings that have new hearts that love good and hate evil, that put Got first, and that appreciate his creation. There are so many different ways of saying this, actually, and one could go and write some nice poetry about it if they wanted, but that’s the basic idea.
1.7 That part of the reason for this Salvation is so that human beings live with the joy and absence of evil that God originally intended for them (p.20, I think this point can be seen where McLaren gives Paul’s answer to the question about going to heaven, because McLaren thinks that Paul primarily wanted people to experience the joys of salvation). The fact is that evil has destroyed the goodness and joy to be found in God’s created order, and the reason that God intends to set the world to rights is for the benefit of his people (and I would add for his own sake as well, and perhaps throw in some stuff about punishment and justice, but I am mainly focusing McLaren for now).
Two Weak Points:
1. That emphasizing the experiential-benefits of Salvation seems to detract from the responsibility or task-structured nature of Salvation. I think that Paul, in his letters, is very concerned to see his congregations living appropriately (c.f. all of 1 Corinthians, but some nice illustrations can also be found in approx. Phil. 2:1-4, 2:12-15, 4:3-9). Paul seems less concerned about people experiencing a joy that accompanies them following their responsibilities and gaining new hearts (c.f. Ephesians 4:17-32), than he is with these changes actually taking place. Also, I think that Jesus is very insistent that he is the issue – not people or their joy or happiness. It is what people do with Jesus that matters most, not anything else (c.f. Matthew Ch.10 for a lot of material along these lines). It is not that joy is unimportant, or not to be sought after, but I think that an independent notion of “Christian responsibilities” which comes with the very idea of being a “Christian” provides two additional things: 1) a motivation for acting and 2) a moral standard.
2. Not enough said about individual responsibility before God and Salvation from the consequences of sins. I am not accusing McLaren of not believing in these things, only that they are essential to an accurate understanding of Salvation, and that I did not find them in Ch.1. Perhaps, however, I am not the greatest sleuth when it comes to reading McLaren’s views, and it is all there in some rather subtle language. I am open to that possibility.
So I think that McLaren is much better on this issue than many Evangelicals would give him credit for, but that there were a few elements
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
This Alien Thing, This Stranger in Our Midst
I'm going to try to write briefly about love and what a strange thing it is.
Here is the NIV text of 1 Corinthians 13, the “love” chapter of New Testament:
I think these verses show that love is a very difficult thing, and a very strange thing.
It is obviously difficult to do all that is here: 1) To keep no record of wrongs; 2) To be slow to anger – especially at something unjust that happens to ourselves; 3) To be patient and kind; 4) To not rejoice at evil (especially evil directed at someone who has wronged us and therefore made us angry); 5) To protect, hope, persevere. The most difficult thing, though, is that love never fails in these things. If you act otherwise, then you are not acting in love. This, to me, is the hardest thing about love.
But love is such a strange thing as well. What kind of thing is love that I can give all my possessions to the poor, and surrender my body to the flames, and not have love? Am I not following Jesus by taking up my cross daily (Luke 9:23)? Or if I give all my possessions to the poor, what more could be asked of me (Matthew 19:21)? Such devotion, commitment, and courage – how is it possible without love?
What more is it that love asks? Self-sacrifice is not love. Devotion is not love. Trust in God is not the same as loving God. So what is love?
I can take up the cause of Christ, I can defend Christ, I can evangelize and speak with all wisdom, and yet lack love.
Insofar as I know anything about love – and I only claim to have a vague idea of what it is, and to only practice it on rare occasion – I think one of the chief things it requires is self-honesty and openness to others. How can I love someone if I will not listen to them, and see myself in light of how I affect them?
I may not know what sort of thing love is. But, based on 1 Corinthians 13, I still think I know what love does. I think that it is love which stays an indignant tongue when its words would be just but harmful. I think it is love that seeks to love others in the ways that they feel loved. I think it is love which puts others first, even when they don’t appreciate it. I think it is love that doesn’t require appreciation (even if it would – at the risk of being redundant – be appreciated). I think it is love that keeps anger from hurting others. Love is the heart that breaks for the pain of others. And I think that if I fail in these things, then I fail to love.
(And, for my brethren in the academic community, I think it is love that stops ink from spilling insults on the printed page that wound others in the body of Christ).
So I see now that though I may love someone, I will never act in perfect love. I can never fulfill all these things. Such is God’s domain alone.
In the end, I find that Love is strange, love is hard, love is compelling.
Here is the NIV text of 1 Corinthians 13, the “love” chapter of New Testament:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
I think these verses show that love is a very difficult thing, and a very strange thing.
It is obviously difficult to do all that is here: 1) To keep no record of wrongs; 2) To be slow to anger – especially at something unjust that happens to ourselves; 3) To be patient and kind; 4) To not rejoice at evil (especially evil directed at someone who has wronged us and therefore made us angry); 5) To protect, hope, persevere. The most difficult thing, though, is that love never fails in these things. If you act otherwise, then you are not acting in love. This, to me, is the hardest thing about love.
But love is such a strange thing as well. What kind of thing is love that I can give all my possessions to the poor, and surrender my body to the flames, and not have love? Am I not following Jesus by taking up my cross daily (Luke 9:23)? Or if I give all my possessions to the poor, what more could be asked of me (Matthew 19:21)? Such devotion, commitment, and courage – how is it possible without love?
What more is it that love asks? Self-sacrifice is not love. Devotion is not love. Trust in God is not the same as loving God. So what is love?
I can take up the cause of Christ, I can defend Christ, I can evangelize and speak with all wisdom, and yet lack love.
Insofar as I know anything about love – and I only claim to have a vague idea of what it is, and to only practice it on rare occasion – I think one of the chief things it requires is self-honesty and openness to others. How can I love someone if I will not listen to them, and see myself in light of how I affect them?
I may not know what sort of thing love is. But, based on 1 Corinthians 13, I still think I know what love does. I think that it is love which stays an indignant tongue when its words would be just but harmful. I think it is love that seeks to love others in the ways that they feel loved. I think it is love which puts others first, even when they don’t appreciate it. I think it is love that doesn’t require appreciation (even if it would – at the risk of being redundant – be appreciated). I think it is love that keeps anger from hurting others. Love is the heart that breaks for the pain of others. And I think that if I fail in these things, then I fail to love.
(And, for my brethren in the academic community, I think it is love that stops ink from spilling insults on the printed page that wound others in the body of Christ).
So I see now that though I may love someone, I will never act in perfect love. I can never fulfill all these things. Such is God’s domain alone.
In the end, I find that Love is strange, love is hard, love is compelling.
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