I am not really a fan of most apologetics.  All too frequently, it seems to me, those who engage in this particular discipline (and here I use “discipline” with some reluctance) seem to presume that they can, by force of argument, convince any rational person that their own system of belief is the only reasonable one.  Construct the right system of facts, observations, and conclusions, and any decent rationalist will, like C. S. Lewis before, be left with no alternative but to become another “dejected and reluctant convert” to the faith.  With due respect to the great Lewis, whose writings I love, I don’t think reason can carry one that far.

On the other hand, however, I have to admit that when I look at why I believe what I do, a lot of the answer is intellectual.  Not in an academic sense, God knows.  I have not studied formal theology or philosophy, I can’t quote all the important (or self-important?) authorities on epistemology and theology, and I have little doubt that in the next couple of posts I’m going ignorantly to abuse at least one “ology” word.  I am not an academician, nor do I presume to be.  Nevertheless, when I look at my faith experience over the first half-century of my life, I am forced to admit that it’s very nearly “all in my head.”  As I wrote a couple years ago, I have never encountered God in the relational way described by many Christians.

So why do I stubbornly hang onto what many characterize as old superstitions, crutches for a weak mind, and the like?  With all the posts I’ve written about ways that Christians are wrong, why don’t I just go all the way and admit that Christianity itself is wrong?  Why don’t I face the fact that people seem godless because there’s no god in the first place?  This post, and some indeterminate number of future ones, are my attempt to answer these questions in a fashion that is coherent for me.

That “for me” phrase is important.  I am not attempting here to convince anybody else that my reasoning trumps their own doctrines, or beliefs, or doubts.  I said above that I don’t think reason alone can carry one all the way to faith.  If I am to “prove” anything in this series, it is that for me at least, reason alone is also insufficient to drive me from faith.  Whether others find my perspective compelling will, I hope, be the subject of some dialog.  I hope, at least, that you enjoy the ride.

When I first heard that Tony Campolo and Shane Claiborne were doing a book on Red Letter Christianity, I was pretty excited.  I have a great deal of respect for both men, and while I don’t always agree with either, I think their prophetic voice in the church is beyond any reasonable dispute.  So I actively sought a review copy of the book, and the kind folks at redletterchristians.org obliged. As a consequence, it’s with more than a little regret that I have to tell you that I found Red Letter Revolution a disappointment. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still worth reading the conversation between Shane and Tony, and there are plenty of spots to get the reader thinking. But considering the authors and the title, I frankly expected a lot more. Red Letter Revolution contains far too few of the red letters (that is, the recorded teachings of Jesus in the gospels, often printed in red), and what’s more, it’s not all that revolutionary.

Longtime readers of this blog will know that I’ve repeatedly suggested Christian theology spends too much time bringing extrabiblical questions to faith. Much of my objection to the traditional creeds is that they create a priority of emphasis that is discordant with scriptural priorities. Part of my own attraction to so-called “Red Letter Christianity” is that, if we approach the gospel accounts, not only for their raw content, but to see what Jesus did–and just as important, what he did not–emphasize, we find areas of focus that differ radically from those taught in most churches, and studied by most theologians. I had hoped Tony and Shane’s book would illustrate this approach, as I believe much of their teaching and living to date has done.

Herein lies my principal disappointment with “Revolution.” The topics chosen for Shane and Tony’s discussion seem to me to have been pulled largely from the agenda of those some might call “liberal” and others “progressive,” not from the gospels. The first eight chapter headings, under the rubric “Red Letter Theology,” illustrate my point: History, Community, the Church, Liturgy, Saints, Hell, Islam, and Economics. Each of these subjects is treated with an interesting and worthwhile perspective, but it’s often one that only tangentially references Jesus’ words–the red letters–at all. And quite frankly, I’m unconvinced that some of these topics, such as liturgy and the saints (that is, those saints recognized and canonized by an official church) would even figure at all in a gospels-sourced curriculum. Others of the eight are more vital, I think, and we certainly can find among the red letters, guidance for how to approach them. But absent the foundation of Jesus’ actual teaching on his kingdom, even these lose their context and much of their power.

The remaining major sections of the book, “Red Letter Living” and “Red Letter World,” continue the pattern established by the first, selecting topics of great interest to progressives (Christian or not) in a manner that I would have expected from Jim Wallis, but I did not anticipate from Campolo and Claiborne. As before, what the two say about the topics so selected is worth reading. But instead of walking the reader through a fresh exploration of life directed by a focus on Jesus’ priorities, I found a book that lays out a decent left-wing alternative to right-wing Evangelicalism. That’s not a bad thing…In fact it’s quite worth doing. But that is not Red-Letter Christianity…it’s Blue-State Christianity. They’re not synonymous.

So in the final analysis this book, though full of interesting insights from two godly men, fails to deliver what it’s title promises. I sincerely hope that the authors will try again.

Disclosure: I received an advance review copy of the book from the publisher; however the opinion expressed herein is my own and (obviously) not that of the publisher or the book’s authors. No consideration regarding the content of this review was asked or offered.

Step 1: Watch the video.

Step 2. Read the text below the video.

And on the third day He rose from the dead, and He…just…smiled.

Christus Victor indeed!

For years, the abuse of Scriptural passages to justify the aggressive exploits of nations has driven me nuts.  Whether it’s the the account of the conquest of Canaan, used by European colonists to take the New World and exterminate or marginalize its indigenous population, or the same story repeated by the Afrikaaner Dutch in South Africa, it’s always repulsed me.  And when revisionist American Christians use the covenental and missional language of the Bible to justify –even advocate for– the interventionist behavior of the United States, I positively want to scream.  Now Braden P. (Brad) Anderson has published a theological response to this abuse, and it’s an important work.

Chosen Nation is the product of Brad’s doctoral dissertation.  In this book, Brad takes on the topics of nationalism and faith through the discipline of theopolitics…an academic focus that looks at how theology is worked out in political frameworks…and does so with a rigor that few have bothered to master.  In doing so, Anderson makes a compelling case that we need to understand both Biblical claims and nationalist narratives before we all-too-lightly mash the two together.

Drawing on the work of William T. Cavenaugh, among others, Anderson takes a hard look at the American notion of exceptionalism, in which the United States is perceived by many to be chosen and ordained by God to perform a special function in the world, typically one that involves the projection of American power and the replication of American-style ideals and governance through the exercise of that power.  Already in the nineteenth century, but also seized upon by modern theologian Stephen H. Webb, Anderson describes a nation that arrogates to itself the role God intended for the church.  Quoting Cavenaugh, the nation “does not simply seek to follow God’s will, but acts as a kind of substitute God on the stage of history.”  The nation, Anderson says, “worships its freedom to worship, which is inherent to its identity, and thus worships itself.”  The resulting nationalism, he writes in his preface, “…is a challenge that rewrites the Christian salvation narrative, reconstructs Christian politics, and reorients disciples of Christ away from solidarity with each other and with those suffering around them.”

One of Anderson’s most important contributions in “Chosen Nation,” I believe, is his analysis of the meaning of God’s covenant with Israel in the Old Testament.  Beginning with the Puritans coming from England to the New World, right through the nineteenth century and into the nationalism of Evangelical Americans today, there has been a tendency to claim elements of that covenant language, and appropriate them to bless–even to promote–American hegemony.  But as Anderson leads us through the Biblical account, he shows us how God established Israel as a set-apart people with himself as the sovereign.  As the prophet Samuel testified, when the people of Israel chose to emulate the nations around by demanding a king and taking on the role of a nation-state, they willfully abandoned God’s sovereignty and abrogated the terms of God’s covenant with them.  “With the expansion of empire [under King David] and its attendant utilization of foreign alliances, slavery, and a standing army, realpolitik becomes institutionalized in the state, and Israel becomes that from which it had been delivered in the exodus.” (emphasis mine)

Paradoxically, then, as Americans (and others) appropriate to their own nations the covenantal language of the early Old Testament, they fail to recognize that the structures and conduct of the nation state are themselves incompatible with the God-directed people for whom that language was intended.  As Anderson says, “To the degree that Christians residing in various nations seek to (1) identify themselves according to a syncretized theopolitical narrative of identity, and (2) secure that national identity through the political ways of the powers, they participate in a form of Israel’s own error, directly altering their identity in the church of Jesus Christ.”

Later in the book, Anderson looks at the Biblical case for the church of Jesus Christ being the heir to God’s divine covenant with Israel (see 1 Pet. 2:4-10 among other foundational passages).  Since the church, rightly seen, is a transnational entity, it is therefore a fundamental error to apply to any modern nation-state that sense of chosenness that rightly belongs to the church.  The church, Anderson writes, “cannot be supplanted from this role without fundamentally altering the salvation narrative it proclaims.  Insofar as nationalists claim for their nation the mantle of the definitive community witnessing to God’s salvation and prefiguring the kingdom of God on earth, they distort the Christian gospel and make their nation a simulacrum or parody of the church.”  More pointedly, he later states about several Christian Right authors in the US that “…by misappropriating biblical Israel as they do, that is, by making the nation America the extension of Israel as central to God’s plans for global salvation, these authors supplant the church, and by implication, Jesus Christ as Lord.” (emphasis mine)

Anderson’s concluding chapter is not so much a conclusion as a challenge for the church to re-engage with its own identity as God’s chosen people on a transnational level.  As an American, his questions are directed particularly at his own people:  “What does it mean to be American when the very origin of the country is rooted in the act of Christians killing other Christians?  What does it mean to be American when the United States constitutes an earthly empire by most measures of the term, that is, military, economic, ideological?”  And perhaps most challenging of all:  “Can we be American as we live in robust solidarity with non-Americans (or even anti-Americans), especially as Christ has rendered any such divisions or exclusions null and void?”

Difficult questions, indeed, and questions Anderson does not attempt to answer in any great detail.  The challenge is left for the reader to take up.  This book is not a quick read, and if you’re at all like me you’ll need to take your time to properly grapple with Anderson’s analysis and with the various theologians–conservative and progressive–with whom he engages.  It’s an important exercise, and well worth the effort.

Disclosure: This review is done on a copy of the book provided to me by the publisher.

For a while now I’ve been reading (and will soon review) the book Chosen Nation by Braden P. (Brad) Anderson. There are a variety of topics in the book that I’m going to want to engage, but one in particular caught my attention last night. In Chapter 7, Brad discusses the work of two writers, Stephen H. Webb and Richard John Neuhaus, both of whom are proponents of a popular notion in which the United States is somehow under a covenantal blessing from God rather as Israel was in the Old Testament. Consequently both, but particularly Webb, hold that the U.S. has not only the right, but even the duty, to act as sovereign on the world stage–and that the Church is duty-bound to support her.

Webb, as related by Anderson, builds much of his case on the notion of “Providence,” the notion that “God rules the world through the work of nations” (Webb, American Providence, 72, quoted by Anderson, 203).  Essentially, the idea is that the nations do what they do because God has so ordered it in order to accomplish his grand design in history. Webb sees a particularly providential role for America, says Anderson, in that “America has been chosen to fill the role of sovereign in the world today, as evidenced by its hegemony” (p.216). As characterized by Tim Beach-Verhey, “Webb argues that American religious, economic, and political institutions and values are dominating the world, which could not happen apart from God’s will, which means it must be in accord with God’s good and benevolent intentions for the world” (Beach-Verhey, as quoted in Anderson, 207).

Anderson does a good job of showing how the Biblical model of God’s kingdom is wrongly co-opted by Webb and others, but what he does not do is address the underlying philosophical assumption of Webb’s claim, which I suggest is a form (or at least a close cousin) of the “Is/Ought” problem first articulated by the 18th-century philosopher David Hume (here’s a brief summary). Hume’s own statement was this:

“In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark’d, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surpriz’d to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation,’tis necessary that it shou’d be observ’d and explain’d; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it … [I] am persuaded, that a small attention [to this point] wou’d subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceiv’d by reason.”

This statement has been reduced in philosophical usage to the statement “you can’t prove an ought from an is,” and numerous writers then refer to any such conclusion as an “ought-is fallacy” — essentially, the notion that what “ought to be” can never be derived through logic from empirical observations (what “is”) alone, and therefore any argument which does so is fallacious.  Google around a little, and you’ll find that philosophers (or at least those who presume to put philosophy on the web) fall into essentially two (vastly oversimplified) camps.  The first says that ought-is reasoning really is fallacious, and that consequently there is no such thing as morality derived from observation–that in fact, a prescriptive “ought” or “ought not” statement simply doesn’t fit into the categories of “true” and “false”.  These thinkers can come to the conclusion that morality is not, in fact rational at all (though by no means all conclude thus).  Another group disagrees, and says merely that one can’t get to a conclusion of morality (or perhaps any judgment of value) if all one’s premises are merely empirical.  In other words, if one’s inputs (premises) include a moral judgment, then it’s possible to infer further moral judgments from that set of premises (see this article by Dr. Charles Pidgin for an exploration of this).

Now all the discussions on the “Is/Ought problem” that I’ve found seem to circle around the concept of deriving imperatives or norms (what one ought to do) from some set of empirical premises.  What I see in Webb is actually a somewhat different type of inference–not one that (directly) tells us what we ought to do, but rather one which informs the “rightness” of what is.  For want of any source I can find on the subject, I’ll phrase it this way:

Thus it is, therefore it thus should be

which I think sounds cooler in Latin:  Sic est, ergo esse debet

(if anyone wants to correct my Latin I’d welcome it)

This is a far-more-comprehensive idea than simply whether or not one can make a value judgment on a particular action, norm, or command.  Rather than examining the basis for moral judgment, this position seems to be used largely as a foundation to silence dissent, to preclude any prophetic or moral evaluation of our nation’s actions.  If God has willed everything “we” do, then no one can challenge “us” without challenging God.

Now, I’m not entirely sure if the principle that what happens is what ought to happen necessitates any sort of Prime Mover who wills it (a position categorically different from mechanistic determinism), but maybe some of my readers can help me out here.  In any event, it is certainly true that many Christians (and, I rather suspect, theists of other faiths as well) do make this claim all the time.  As I have previously written (see here and here), I believe the assertion that whatever happens is God’s predetermined will is an error founded primarily on a misunderstanding of the meaning of God’s sovereignty, one that conflates sovereignty with absolute control or determinism.  But I don’t have to commit myself either to logic or to faith to call out Webb’s rationale as fallacious.  At the bottom, the claim that everything happens as it is destined or determined to happen does not follow from logic (Greg Boyd makes a nice case on this here); nor does it follow from the Biblical account of God, who for example, genuinely regretted having made Saul king of Israel (see this post on God’s immutability for more).

More importantly from a Biblical standpoint, it is instructive to compare 2 Kings 24, in which a variety of Chaldaeans, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites all attack Judah (see 2 Kings 24:1-4), and yet these very groups are punished for their actions (see Amos 1 & 2).  If one accepts that the wars of nations are tools in God’s hands, as a literal reading of 2 Kings would suggest, then Amos informs us that being God’s tool may not be such a great thing after all.  If, on the other hand, one holds that God works around and through evil human actions (that is, actions that in themselves run counter to God’s will) for his own good purposes, one cannot then conclude that because God used a situation, he willed it or (more to the point) God’s people ought to support it.  Yet this is precisely what Webb does.  Simply, Webb’s claim that what the United States is doing on the global stage is the right thing (and the church should therefore support it without question) just because whatever the nation does is God’s will, is completely fallacious (and somewhat circular) whether you believe in the God of the Bible or not.  I’m a little surprised Anderson didn’t call him on it.

Disclaimer:  in case any true academic student of philosophy comes across this post, let me say that I do not claim any credential in this regard.  I’m trying to make reasonable inferences from some philosophical literature, but I am a layman and claim nothing else.  If you want to clarify or correct my reasoning, I welcome it, but please understand that I freely admit to being an outsider in the discipline.

My blogging friend Morgan Guyton recently published a post in which he took on Four cringe-worthy claims of popular penal-substitution theology.  I heartily commend the post to all, and I cringe right along with Morgan each of the points he highlighted.  Nevertheless I find myself pushing back in some regards, and pushing further in others.  My intent here is to interact directly with Morgan’s article, so I encourage the reader to begin by reading his post.

Morgan’s first objection is to the popular notion in Penal-Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) that God’s d cannot tolerate the presence of sin…that “God is allergic to sin” as he amusingly puts it.  He’s absolutely right that this claim is baloney (I’ve addressed this before in my post Did God really abandon Jesus on the cross?), and that Jesus’ becoming human in order to get close–even to befriend–sinners is prime evidence of this fact.  His further statement “It was not that Jesus couldn’t tolerate imperfection but rather that His perfection was intolerable” is,  I think, a reasonable characterization.  He then concludes “God is light; He doesn’t need the cross to protect Him from our darkness; we need the cross so we can survive entering into God’s light.”  I think he’s almost right…the cross was for us and not for God…but not so much so we could “survive” God:  only God’s love and graciousness are needed for that.  Rather, we “needed” the cross in part because it demonstrated the positively crazy lengths to which God would go to invite humanity into his presence.  Without that prodigal expression of sacrificial benevolence, we could not (or would not) trust the Father when he invites us into his presence.  Thus the “boldness” we are challenged to exercise in Heb. 4:14-16, is the appropriate response to the cross.

Morgan’s second point is to oppose the notion that God sees Jesus, not us, when he looks upon those who have been justified through Christ…”that the reason God gives us His “approval” is because He doesn’t see us when He looks at us but sees Jesus instead. That’s not approval; that’s deception.”  Morgan is absolutely right.  I’ve always found the notion that somehow Jesus was helping us pull the wool over his Father’s eyes to be frankly offensive.  I can’t say it better than Morgan himself concluded this section:  “God doesn’t need to see a Jesus mask over our faces to approve us; His unconditional prior approval of us is the reason He sent His Word made flesh to empower us for holy living through our incorporation into His body.”

The third issue Guyton takes on is the notion that “Since God is infinite, he is infinitely offended by our slightest sins.”  Morgan goes into the history of the “Satisfaction” theory of atonement, which suggests that the cross was necessary to satisfy God’s honor which had been sullied by the sins of his creation.  Here again, he makes the assertion that the sacrifice of Christ, to the extent it would satisfy God’s honor, was because *we* need to be sure of God’s satisfaction, not because God demanded it.  My objection to this is that the whole notion that God’s honor needs to be addressed through a sacrifice is itself not a Biblical concept as far as I can see–it certainly is not part of any description of sacrifice that I can recall in the Bible.  I have not read Anshelm myself, but Guyton makes no mention of Anshelm’s having appealed to Scripture for the rationale of satisfaction, nor does Morgan himself appeal to Scripture in correcting the doctrine.  I suggest that it ought to be ditched wholesale as an extrabiblical proposition.

The fourth “cringe-worthy” point Guyton refutes is the claim that God poured out his wrath on Jesus on the cross.  As he says partway through the section:  “I cannot find anywhere in scripture that makes the Father the primary agent behind the crucifixion of His Son.”  He’s right.  I’ve argued similarly when I refuted the notion that God had turned his back on Jesus on the cross.  Guyton correctly points out that Romans 1:18-31 tells us the evidence of God’s wrath is him handing people over to the very depravity they desire.  That’s just not what happened on the cross.  In fact, nothing I can find in Scripture suggests that Jesus was the recipient of God’s wrath in any form.  As Morgan states, “In any case, what happened on the cross is that God the Father did not prevent God the Son from being killed by the Jewish religious authorities. He let Him drink the cup of (His/our?) wrath which He came to Earth to drink. But this in no way means that the Father was the executioner of the Son for the sake of His own anger management. When we talk about the Father “pouring out His wrath” on His son, we make Him look like a drunken child abuser.”

Morgan concludes “Penal substitution is an important part of the rich mystery of the cross — just not in the oversimplified, canned version that has come to predominate our juvenilized evangelical church.”  I’m frankly confused by this, because he’s just made very good points that Jesus was not being punished (the penal part) by God, but also because (and Guyton doesn’t say this) I see no evidence in Scripture that what Jesus did was “in our place” either…that is, whatever Jesus was doing was not as a “substitute” for us.  The Biblical testimony is clear that Jesus died and was resurrected for our sakes.  I do not mean in any way to deny or diminish that fact.  But the evidence that his death was somehow in loco humanis just isn’t there.  Penal-substitution doesn’t need to be reclaimed from poor interpretation, it needs to be discarded entirely.

Which is why I still find Christus Victor a much better way to attempt wrapping our puny brains around Jesus’ death and resurrection…

Edit: According to my Mom’s comment below, I conflated two guys in the charismatic movement named “Dick” in my memory.  I have revised this post to reflect the history accurately, and while I still maintain the “prophecy” by Dick Joyce was false, I withdraw any such suggestion about the late Dick Mills, who passed away last month.

My parents were involved in the Charismatic Movement in the 1970s when we lived in Southern California.  Much of my own suspicion about claims of supernatural happenings in Christian circles, actually comes from my experience with the Charismatics.  There’s a longer story there, and maybe someday I’ll tell more of it…suffice it to say for now that the vast bulk of all I’ve ever encountered claiming the miraculous work of God smells to me of delusion or fraud or both–not, please understand, because I believe God couldn’t do miraculous works today, but rather because I rather think he usually doesn’t, and more importantly that an awful lot of snake oil gets sold by Christians claiming otherwise.

Anyway, back in ’72 or ’73 we encountered this guy named Dick Mills when he spoke at our church in Upland, California.  He had a rather interesting ministry in that he claimed that when he met an individual, God would bring to his mind one or more of the many Bible promises he had memorized (and the man had a phenomenal memory), and with it give them a prophetic word that was uniquely suited to that individual.  Both Mom and Dad were given words by Mills during that service, which they believed were later shown to come true.  I haven’t asked them recently what their take on these experiences are 40 years on (Mom & Dad, you’re welcome to comment…I’d love to know), but this is my story anyway and not theirs.

Some time later, Mom and Dad went to a Charismatic conference (I believe it was called a “Holy Spirit Conference”) somewhere back East, and when they came home, they came with a tape of one of the sessions at which somehow another speaker named Dick Joyce had asked them both to stand up in what I gather was a rather large audience, and had given them a very specific prophecy regarding their four sons.  I clearly remember the message they played for us…Dick had told them that the Lord intended that of us four boys, one would become a powerful public speaker for God, two would be involved in Christian music ministry, and one would be, though “antisocial by the world’s standards,” a “conceptual thinker” about matters of faith.  I also recall that at least one later time Dick met our whole family at another event, and he remembered and reiterated this theme.

I grasped for this “word from the Lord” at the time.  It was a period of profound disappointment for me, where I saw all this activity around me that claimed to be the Holy Spirit working, and yet I always found myself feeling like the hungry little kid pressing his nose against the window of a restaurant where the happy patrons inside were enjoying a sumptuous feast.  This, I thought for a while, was the one place where God had actually directed some of this stuff to me.  I wanted that, and for a while I hung onto it.

So, forty years on and at the death of the prophet, what of his prophecy?  I’m in public health and government, my next brother down is a university chemistry professor, the next is an international businessman, and the youngest is a middle school science teacher.  Career isn’t everything though.  Can we be fit into any of those four categories?  Well, I suppose this blog might call me out as the conceptual thinker, but I’m hardly antisocial and am happy to speak in public.  None of us are remotely connected to music whether secular or sacred (and only two of us are particularly musical, me being one of the two).  Number three in the lineup is definitely a well-regarded public speaker, but it’s in the field of international economics, finance, and intellectual property.  Those may be articles of faith to some, I suppose, but. . .

The Bible makes some pretty harsh statements about prophets whose prophecies don’t come true.  Deut. 18:22 says:  “when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.”  Earlier in the same passage (verse 20) God is even harsher:  “But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.”  I never heard Joyce speak in the name of another god, but by this yardstick, he spoke presumptuously (in fact, to suggest God has a personal word for nearly everyone you meet seems to me presumptuous on the face of it).

There may be times that Joyce truly brought a word from the Lord to other people than me.  I cannot testify for them.  But while we’re not dead yet, it would seem to me that 40 years on it is highly probable that the very-public prophecy given about my brothers and me was false and presumptuous.  Dick Joyce was, by my testimony at least, a false prophet.

Why do I tell you this story?  Two reasons, I suppose.  First because it’s one small window for those of my friends reading this blog, as to why I tend to be pretty suspicious of miraculous claims of any sort.  My cynicism has been a long time in growing, and it’s hard-earned.  But more importantly, I tell it because I think it is vitally important that we be careful not to misrepresent our own works (or our good luck) as God’s miraculous intervention.  Giving glory and thanks to God for blessings experienced is good and right.  But I see a tendency among many Christians to mistake warm or ecstatic feelings for the presence of God, and to chalk up every positive occurrence to God’s miraculous intervention.  The unfortunate corollary to this way of interpreting life, however, is that the person who’s depressed or whose life isn’t going so well, feels abandoned by the same God that’s supposedly “blessing” the fortunate. This tragic interpretation can lead that unfortunate person to doubt the whole enterprise…I know well, because it’s been me on more than one occasion.

God may in fact do stuff in the church of today like we read about in the Book of Acts, sometime and somewhere.  But if he ever does, it won’t take manufactured faith to see it.  Until then, we would do well to be a little more circumspect in our claims of divine intervention.

I was asked a question, through email, recently about N.T Wright’s view of Justification. Since I wrote a long answer, I figured I would post it as well on our blog.

N.T Wright has a great book that I though was extremely useful called The Climax of the Covenant. In this book he outlines how Jesus and the cross were the climactic event of God’s covenant with Israel. The law was there simply to point out sin (the wrong) and provide insights on how to truly bear and steward the image of God. God’s covenant with Israel, in this perspective, is not that Israel as a people, nor the law, nor sacrifices, etc., were the answer or solution to sin, only that the answer and solution to sin would come through Israel. N.T. Wright’s analogy for this was that Israel is like the bomb squad whose job is to manage the bomb until the time is right then lay it at the foot of the cross. His point was more often than not Israel believed they were also to diffuse the bomb and this is not the case. So covenantal theology that understands the covenant and how Jesus fits as the story of Israel’s climax is a core point.

The second is a more holistic understanding of sin (the wrong). For this the law court metaphor works quite well and I think brings even deeper understanding than most evangelicals allow it to. To fully understand the law court analogy we have to have the judge (God), the defendant (humanity) and the plaintiff (satan) all present. For this an analogy from The Lion, The Which and the Wardrobe is helpful. I think C.S. Lewis was onto something with how he presented this scenario.

When Edmund, representing humanity, comes into the camp Aslan takes him and speaks with him. Aslan then comes out and announces that the matter with Edmund has been settled (between Aslan and Edmund), Aslan had forgiven him. All of this without a sacrifice and without a substitution (yet)… Then the White Witch enters and says not so fast Aslan there is a matter that needs to be settled according to the law, she (the law and satan) still had a claim against Edmund. As we all know Aslan takes his place thus dealing with the claim the White Witch (satan) had on Edmund (humanity) once and for all.

This view I think is a much more biblical presentation of penal substitutionary atonement. It is penal only in the sense of the matter of the law, and substitutionary in that Jesus took our place in the matter of satan’s claim on humanity thus setting us free once and for all. But it does not present an angry God or one where we are starting off on the wrong foot with and someone needs to take the punishment to fulfill God’s wrath. It is more about settling the matter with the one who brings the claim up because of the law.

So back to the courtroom setting. Because of the scenario above, the matter has been dealt with. Satan has accepted the substitution once and for all and released his claim thus acknowledging the matter has been resolved and he will not bring it up again. There is to be no re-trial.. Satan believed that the Son of God who is the only person who can threaten his Kingdom was going to be killed (and not raised again) and was a fair trade for all of humanity.

So Justification in light of all of this is simply God finding humanity to be in the right and of no wrong doing. N.T. Wright points out what is different from most evangelical views, including those like John Piper, which is that justification is not about imputed righteousness in that we somehow become or attain righteous attributes from God. It is simply only that we are found in the right and to be not guilty (even though we still are because we still sin) God does not even acknowledge it is there, it is gone, forever, not just covered, transferred, etc. There is no longer any claim against us because of Jesus because the accuser lost the right to accuse us any more in accepting the substitution.

This, I would contend, even when reading Paul’s covenantal theology and even his understanding of sin, law, courtroom, etc., that this view is the way Paul understood all the Jewish heritage, with the amazing act of the cross and now into the Kingdom where God is becoming King through Jesus (his words) because of the resurrection (Jesus’s coronation) of the Kingdom that is inaugurated but not yet consummated.

No, that word “inclusive” does not mean what you  (probably) think it means…not this time, anyway.  The following has nothing to do with the gender of language, gender of leaders, sexual preference of anybody, or any of the other popular uses of the term.   I have been thinking, lately, of how exclusive the choice of “worship” focus, language, and music often are.  As with so many things, I believe the church has regularly misdirected worship in some important ways.

In this discussion I’m going to beg the question of whether the stuff we characterize as “worship” has any relationship to the biblical concept(s) encapsulated in the word…if you want to explore that further check out my mom’s excellent article on the subject.  For now we’ll just work with the common English usage: that is, some combination of music, readings, and other material designed–purportedly at least–to focus the corporate body on God and his work.

Two songs I’ve heard in the past week illustrate my point.  The first is the old hymn “Amazing Grace,” just sung at the funeral of my 102-year-old Grandmother:

Amazing Grace!  How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me

I once was lost, but now I’m found

Was blind, but now I see.

(John Newton, 1779)

The second I heard last Sunday at church, and yesterday afternoon at an Arby’s in South Carolina (KLOV on the PA system…ugh!), “Forever Reign” by Hillsong:

Oh, I’m running to your arms, I’m running to your arms,

The riches of your love, will always be enough.

Nothing compares to your embrace,

Light of the world, forever reign!

Both of these songs are deeply meaningful to some people.  Both even focus some people’s attention at least partly on God.  But I can’t honestly sing either one.

“Amazing Grace,” of course, was written by John Newton who, before he believed in Christ, was captain of a slave ship, and a rather cruel one by his own account.  When Newton described the grace of God having “saved a wretch like me,” he was acutely aware whereof he spoke.  I have many friends who, having brought out of some pretty awful circumstances, likewise can testify to having been saved by Christ from some truly wretched things.  It’s certainly biblical too, as the apostle Paul also looked back on his persecution of the church and called himself the worst of sinners (see 1 Tim. 1:12-16).  But it is not universal. I make no claims to be a paragon of virtue, but I’ve had a pretty ordinary life in many respects and would not characterize any period of my own experience as “wretched.”  I have never been as blind as the song implies, yet even now I’m unsure just how much I see.  I do not discount the pilgrimage of those for whom “Amazing Grace” is a very real testimony, but it is not mine.

Likewise, “Forever Reign” paints the image of us running to the Father’s arms. I know that image intimately as I’m a daddy. I love it when my kids charge recklessly into my extended embrace…but I have never experienced anything remotely approximating that image with God.  I know what a paternal hug feels like, and God may give those to some of his followers, but I’m not one of them.

I do not mean to suggest that those who do find these songs represent their faith, ought not sing them at all. It’s even appropriate to sing them publicly in testimony if true. But they’re inappropriate for corporate worship, I suggest, for the simple reason that only part of the assembly can sing them with honesty. Better by far would be to select songs–old and new–that emphasize God’s goodness, power, sovereignty, and works.  These are true for all of us, do not depend on personal experience whether real or imagined, and most importantly direct our attention AWAY from self-destructive navel-gazing and TOWARD our creator and king.   Just maybe, such a shift in content might remind us that we aren’t the center of God’s universe after all.  And while we’re at it, maybe we’d make it just a tiny bit less likely people would feel the need to manufacture religious experience in order to fit into our molds.

Brian McLaren has recently come out with three little fiction e-books:  The Word of the Lord to Evangelicals, The Word of the Lord to Republicans, and The Word of the Lord to Democrats.

I heartily and without reservation recommend The Word of the Lord to Evangelicals to everyone who reads this blog.  It’s a wonderful little parable in which we follow Wheaton College student Wendy Gullivan.  Wendy has a surprise encounter with God in the form of a homeless man while she’s on an “Urban Immersion” ministry weekend with fellow Wheaton students.  God, it seems, is depressed–suicidally depressed–by Evangelicals…”Especially American Evangelicals.  And most especially in groups.  The more, the scarier.”

Over the next four or five years, Wendy and God meet up several more times, and with each encounter, Wendy learns a little more about how to shift her perspective from an obsession with personal salvation and certainty of doctrine, to loving and ministering to those God loves.  Along the way, McLaren is good for several hearty laughs from those of us who recognize ourselves, our friends, or our churches in his characters.  I don’t want to ruin the story by spilling too much…for three bucks you really ought to just read it!  But I will say his alternate rendition of some Scriptures the way Evangelicals teach them is worth the price alone.  Take this example:

For God so loved the church that he gave to himself his only Son, as a penal substitutionary sacrifice, so that those elect few who believe in this atoning doctrine would not suffer eternal, conscious torment in hell as a result of original sin, but would live forever in heaven after death.  For God did not send his Son into the world to save the world, but to condemn it, and save only the church.  (Not John 3:16-17)

The other two books, The Word of the Lord to Democrats and The Word of the Lord to Republicans are both good, but I can’t give them the same unqualified “You Must Read This” endorsement.  Both are actually funnier, in places, than Evangelicals.  But while McLaren’s skewering of Republicans is both witty and pointed (and quite appropriate, I think), in Democrats Brian pulls his punches too much.  I say this as a Democrat–it seemed to me that McLaren’s “Word of the Lord” to the Dems was largely that they are behaving too much like Republicans.  While this is to some extent accurate, it seems to me that if God were to send a message to Democrats it would have a lot more content than just “make up your mind what you’re going to stand for and then take a stand”  (for one thing, I think God’s message to Democrats would also remind them (us) that morality and holiness aren’t antiquated concepts to be left on the scrap heap of history).  So I finished Democrats rather disappointed that he hadn’t slapped them around with the same gusto he did in Republicans.  I will say, however, that his parody of Rush Limbaugh in Democrats is inspired…

All three books are well worth the $2.99 each.  Unfortunately they are only available as e-books…the good news being that this means they’re cheap, but it also means you can only read them on an e-reader or your computer (either Amazon or Barnes & Noble carry them).