seethrough

would you serve a God you didn’t like or respect?

* a thought experiment *

ok, so this “God” does things, or runs the universe, according to principles and values which you don’t embrace.  I don’t mean selfish differences like you would like fancy stuff and God is teaching you simplicity.  I mean, this “God” has set his heart on a special group of people - choosing to bless and affirm them above others.  You prefer the value of inclusivity which would involve a “God” who is not swayed by worldly labels and distinctions - a God who sees beyond nationalistic superiority to the bigger picture (rather than actually encouraging it!)

hmmm… so the options are:

1. recognise that God is GOD - and who are you pimply little nobody to question “his” ways?????  (well, that certainly settles the matter for me then.  I can turn over and go back to sleep…)

2. consider that God is always “God” to us - a humanly constructed concept that doesn’t even begin to fathom the complexities of God’s values and ways… (which unfortunately leads to 2 alternative sub-conclusions…)

• a) because God is so almightily superior and beyond comprehension… who are you pimply little nobody to be questioning “his” ways???? (getting back to familiar territory…  *yawn*)
• b) because God is so almightily superior and beyond comprehension, God would never stoop to silly tribal contests, taking sides in wars or rugby matches.  God transcends these human ego contests…

3. discover that “God” is (unfortunately) as tribal as he is reflected in (some parts of) the Bible  (i remember some pastor oke telling me that (his) God would have no problem wiping out whole nations - no tension there for him at all!!!).  Which leads to the interesting position of someone actually consciously choosing “hell” over “heaven” with that “awe-ful” God…

* end of thought experiment *

my point is… heaven is only heaven (with God for eternity) if you LOVE the God OF eternity.  Obedience is ok.  But obeying a God you don’t Love, and doing things he commands that you don’t believe in, is not recipe for eternal joy.

Yahweh, the God of the Bible, apart from a whole lot of “stuff” which I struggle with, seems to be a God who wants partnership, friendship, relationship.  It’s almost as if, he wants us to “Love his Law” - not just obey it.

The Kin’dom Vision of Jesus where

• all are welcome, and
• outsiders are valued, and
• righteousness is never free to become self-righteousness, and
• God IS the message, and integrity is practiced, and
• community is born, and
• women are empowered, and
• racial segregation is challenged, and
• silly old-wives tales are put to bed - like physical disability being a result of “the sins of the fathers”, and
• lepers (read HIV-Aids sufferers) are touched, and
• humility and servant leadership is modeled…

this vision…  I love.  obedience is a small word to offer in response to it.

this vision inspires passion and participation, it invites me, calls me, reminds me…  it’s just not hard to Love a God like this!

some people like to remember Jesus like this…

He died on the cross to make it possible for us to go to heaven.  We (humans) have all sinned and angered a righteous God.  God is (presumably) not able to forgive us in the way he forgives numerous people throughout the previous ages - by just saying “you’re forgiven”.  A payment must be made.  A suitable sacrifice must be offered to placate all this pent up anger (that would send us all to a deserved place in eternal punishment).  So Jesus dies, takes our sin upon himself, and in so doing, frees us from guilt and shame thus enabling intimate relationship with God again.  Most importantly, with such forgiveness secured, our eternal place in heaven is assured.  Good news!

Usually people who present this summary have a fairly strong committment to the authority of scripture, which they usually regard as THE vital and inerrant revelation of God’s message to people on this earth.  So as I read said scriptures it seems to me that this sumamry is not properly in line with all that is said about Jesus in the Bible.  It’s not that forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God is not mentioned.  Of course it is.  The difficulty I have is that forgiveness of sins doesn’t seem to be top of Jesus’ agenda.  In fact, he is so busy dishing out assurance of forgiveness (Mt 9:2-5, Mk 2:5, Lk 5:20, 7:48) that he seriously ruffles the feathers of the religious types of his time, who spent their energy (surprise!) carefully clarifying what EXACTLY was required to please God and earn sufficient atonement.  They are so offended by this generous display of absolution that they accuse him of the highest offence in Jewish Law (breaking the first commandment) - blasphemy.  see Mark 2:7 and John 10:33.  I would argue that it is on these very grounds - with this kind of self-righteous motivation - that the religious leaders of Jerusalem did whatever was required to have Jesus “eliminated” (to use a euphamism more common in political circles…)

Jesus’ great preoccupation was with trying to proclaim that Kingdom of God (Heaven) was already here/near/amongst you (some translations even render “within you”).  “To proclaim release for the captives, sight to the blind, good news to the poor…”

The greater evil in our world is not people who have not repented and confessed their sin.  (Many of them have, they simply don’t want to have anything to do with religion - an interesting distinction that religious groupings will need to consider carefully…)  The real evil is people who claim to have repented - who are openly religious - and yet continue to live without grace, perpetrating some of the greatest acts of injustice, hatred, oppression, cruelty and blindness.

Christianity (and I think Islam as well) must answer for how it has failed to honour the teaching of it’s own scriptures… “do not judge”, do not condemn”, “do not resist an evil doer”, “love your enemies”, “pray for those who persecute you”…

Religious people (so easily, and regularly, it seems) feel the need to delimit the boundaries of God’s forgiveness, allowing the “story” to beomce about who’s IN and who’s not.  Re-member-ing the story of Jesus, and the glorious good news that the Bible offers to a hurting and broken world, requires a re-reading of scripture, seeking to open ourselves to all that Jesus is about.  Jesus’ agenda is contained in John 10:10, life (in all it’s fulness).  Heaven is not so much the goal as it is the measure.  the measure of how well we are grasping and living the life that God has intended.  Eternal life is not worth considering draggin ourselves through until we’ve allowed God’s Spirit to bring us to life - to know what it means to really live!  Then eternal life will be something to look forward to…

if only we could forget all the limiting stuff we’ve heard about Jesus and be able to read the Bible again, as if for the first time…

if only we could forgive people as willingly, and quickly as our heavenly Father seems to…

if only we could catch a glimpse of the earth/world/universe transforming vision that motivated and guided all that Jesus said and did…

does Jesus point us to God’s Word in the Bible?

or does the Bible point us to Jesus, the Word?

Luke 24:17
Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

do you have to believe to benefit?

for instance:

• do you have to believe that Jesus is God in human form (incarnate) to benefit from Jesus being God’s human form? or,
• is Jesus’ death on the cross only beneficial for those who believe that he died for them (or that his death has some significance for them)?

and if believing isn’t the big issue… (as we’ve been led to believe)

… then what IS the big issue?

can the acts of God be effective and beneficial to us no matter how we view them?  John Wesley pointed out that the Devil of Hell believes Jesus is the Son of God but that doesn’t necessarily help him…

on this blog i think i write more than i probably should on the topic of the so-called spiritual life. which raises a huge dilemma for me: if we assume that integrity and wholeness flow from a rejection of unhelpful dualism (drawing a disctinction between the physical and the spiritual) and that a helpful “spirituality” will be one that takes seriously questions of body, mind AND spirit (Dallas Willard would add to that list, community or relationships and group all four categories of human life under the heading “SOUL”) then what shall we call that journey? to refer to is as a spiritual life or a spiritual journey fails to acknowledge the new focus on body and spirit, physical and spiritual, together (along with other things categories that might need to be included in a wholistic model of healthy living)

what do you suggest?

at first i just dropped the adjective “spiritual” and spoke about the journey or about life. but that doesn’t do proper justive to the sense of intentionality expressed by the phrase “spiritual life”. usually when that phrase is used, it refers to a more intentional approach to spirituality. so how do we speak about an intentional journey that embraces growing wholeness in all of these important aspects of being human.

If the word soul can be distinguished from the word spirit then perhaps “the soul journey” could describe this important integrating journey seeking wholeness through greated wholeness…

a friend emailed the following message through this morning:

Hi all,
A great theologian, Tom Torrance passed away last week Sunday. We thank God for his tremendous gifts.

which raised the question in my mind… what is a “great theologian”.
some of the questions I would ask of a theologian who wants to be remembered as “great” are

• did you participate in a local community of faith? (and how did that participation contribute to your work as “theologian”?)
• how did ordinary people - ordinary readers of scripture - respond to your communication of things theological? how accessible would you say your writings (or communications) are to the ordinary reader/listener?
• who gets most excited when your theology is presented? (and who most benefits from the theological position or perspective you have chosen to adopt or hold?)

I am not familiar with the work of Tom Torrance, so my questions are no reflection on his greatness. what is becoming increasingly clear for me is that the work of theology is most clearly the work of the faith community in vital conversation with other knowledges, and not the other way around. (i.e. theology being done in the academy with occasional reference to the faith community…)

so often i read ideas in books that really excite me. i feel such a sense of ordinariness when compared to these amazing men and women who write books and are often quoted and regarded as “authorities” in their fields. and yet, so often they never pastored a local church - and that makes me wonder about how viable their theory is - how authorative their teaching is when it’s never been tested.

theologians who are able to integrate theory into a living community of faith (the church), are the ones who really get my admiration…

not really, but i thought I’d get the attention of some of my nerd-theologian friends… (or used-to-be-friends…)

a few days ago I wrote about my understanding of theology (here). Wessel offered some helpful responses! one of the things i said in passing was that “Systematic Theology” may have adopted that adjective (systematic) at a very rationalistic period in history. in that sense we may need to critique the theological endeavour done in such an overly rationalistic context. But I’m sure that the word “systematic” doesn’t properly refer so much to the rational form of the Theology as it does to it’s overall coherence and consistency.

I was lying on the bed this afternoon, resting after a morning of preaching. I was thinking about my sermon of this morning, and wondering whether people realise that this morning’s sermon is for me just a piece of a larger puzzle. I work hard to ensure that the things I said this morning are consistent and compatible with the things I said last week and last year. I see myself slowly building a comprehensive picture of Life as God (in Jesus) calls me into it. I’m not saying you won’t be able to pick holes in my consistency. In fact, the most clear problem with this desire for consistency is when I realise I was wrong and have had to change my perspective or understanding… that means that things I said today may indeed be inconsistent with things I said last year - i would put that down to learning and growth…

But i wonder if some people go to church each week and expect a piece of something (pie?). one week they hear sermon on gratitude, the next on forgiveness. each sermon may be like a puzzle piece, but does it seem like the pieces are part of different puzzles or is it clear that each sermon is a part of a greater message that makes up a consistent and coherent whole?

what’s my concern? one example… a colleague serving a (racially) uniting congregation in the United States of America recently wrote about a question of theological consistency that he encountered in that context. he asks: why is it that the very same people who oppose abortion - using the argument that the Bible teaches all life is sacred - are the very same people who support and even advocate FOR the death penalty?

in this sense, seeking out a systematic theology - a theology (talk about God) that hangs together and has a general consistency and coherence - is certainly something I would support. Actually, more than support - every sermon, week after week, is my piece-by-piece contribution to a “systematic theology”. I really do think that my sermons will best be grasped in that light!

p.s. 2 obvious consequences of that then:

1. to really “get” my sermons, one would need to listen regularly, in order to see the bigger picture that all the puzzle pieces are part of… (and obviously that picture is not my own, but very hopefully the gospel picture!) The point is that my sermons are not primarily “single episodes” teaching moral lessons - get one when you need a boost kind of devotional messages. rather, they are a slow journey toward a new way of seeing, feeling, touching, being…
2. this kind of approach to listening and participating in “God-talk” means that it is primarily done in the context of regular worship - and a regular worshipping community. going to church is not so much about pleasing God but rather an active participation in a learning, growing, expanding, seeing community! (which i’m sure pleases God!)

can theology be ethical? should ethics be theological? what does ethical theology look like and how does theological ethics sound?

ag man, academia can sometimes get itself really tied up in knots. I remember being asked by some clever dick in a UNISA exam what the difference between Pastoral Counselling and Pastoral Care is… Academics reading this probably agree with that UNISA professor that I’m an ignorant ass. but I reckon (after 12 years in Pastoral Work) if the answer isn’t as simple as “Pastoral Counselling is a part of Pastoral Care” then you’ve got yourself so tied up in defining terms that you’ve forgotten why you asked the question in the first place. I’d LOVE to hear from a person actually DOING Pastoral Care in a local community of faith to shed some light on the importance of making some clever-dick distinction between these two activities!!! (ok, enough on the sermon, and on to the real purpose of this post…)

I’ve been reading The Hauerwas Reader (a fairly comprehensive collection of his essays) and enjoying his overview of the history of Ethics. It’s quite focussed on developments on the American scene, especially over the past century, but one of his insights has encouraged me. He acknowledges that it is only relatively recently, in the history of Christian Theology, that Ethics (roughly understood as reflection on how Christians live out their lives) was seen as a separate activity to Theology (roughly understood as reflection on what Christians believe and sometimes known Dogmatics or Systematic Theology - which introduces a hugely problematic adjective that suddenly appears in one of the most rationalistic periods in history…surprise?)

So we have separated how Christians live out their lives from what Christians believe… and then we wonder why people say (and represent) one thing on Sundays and another at work on Monday… Our artificial - academic/philosophical - differentiation has done much harm to the simplicity of The Way that Jesus calls us to walk in. Jesus does not ask us to leave our minds behind. In fact he suggests that we are required to Love God… with all our minds… I’m not proposing anti-intellectualism here. I’m just busy clarifying some of the core values that determine how and why the activity of Theology should be practised.

I believe that Theology is a simple activity. It is “Talk about God”. Theo (from Theos meaning God) and logy (from logos meaning words or the study of). Theology is a reflection on what people of faith believe - but only if the word believe is clearly understood as a verb. To believe in a faith sense is not just to give mental ascent to some philosophical idea. Philosophy may have merit, but Theology has to do with believing that involves a whole person. To say I believe in Jesus - does not mean that I accept that he exists. As John Wesley points out in one of his sermons - even the demons believe in Jesus in that sense! To say I believe in Jesus is to say something more - it means I will give my allegiance, my attention, my body and soul for this Jesus…

In this sense, the Community of Faith is the context of Theology. Academia may have a contribution to make, but in the end all important theology must be done by ordinary people who live their lives in the contexts of ordinary life. Profs in Ivory towers (some of whom no longer participate in a local worshipping community) have given up their vital connection to the important Theological conversation that continues in the local community of faith every sunday, and during the week…

I remember attending a lecture by some grand visiting professor in Old Testament studies. He spoke way over my head, but I did muster the courage to ask a sincere question… I asked whether he had shared his views on the Old Testament with ordinary readers of the bible - regular sunday church goers - and how they had responded. My fellow students all gasped, thinking this a very rude question to ask, but the visiting lecturer was happy to reflect that he worshipped in a local church back home and that this was a vital part of his work. I really don’t mean to offend, but I don’t apologise for asking about this important “credential” - the work of Theology is done in the context of Faithful Worshipping Community.

It is also the special privilege of Ordinary People!!! I had a little debate with a colleague recently about Theology that is done in such a sophisticated (philosophical) way that it gives the impression that Theology can only be done in that way - at the same time excluding people who are not familiar with the meaning of these concepts. I will never forget the Tributes paid to Rev Viv Harris at his funeral. A women remembered that although he was one of the most intelligent people she had ever known, he always used language that an ordinary person would be able to understand, especially in his preaching. For me there is no question that ordinary people, faithful worshipping together week by week, provide the primary context for the work of Christian Theology! You can use whatever words you like, but when you’re talking about love, joy, peace… no sophisticated words are really necessary. (In fact, maybe our ventures into sophistication are an elaborate avoidance of the simple challenges of the teaching of Jesus!)

This then leads me to my final important point - that there can be no meaningful distinction between Theology and Ethics. All Theology must be Ethics and Ethics, if it is to be Christian, must be Theology. Reflections on what we believe is always a reflection on how we will think (which is an activity that can be ethical or not, how we will speak and how we will live our lives. In the same way, our lives will reflect what we believe. There is no need to debate fancy philosophical definitions (although some may feel the desire to do it - whatever blows your hair back!) for how we live will clearly reflect our real convictions. As Jesus liked to remind learners who were listening: we will be known by the fruit that our lives produce (Matt 7:16-20)