The Mistakes of Multiculturalism Part 3: Capitulating our own glory or Accumulating the glory of the "other."

Imagine a big round table and each chair is made of the same plush material (Eurocentric boardroom metaphor – sorry). In front of each chair is a singular name plaque encrusted with a tongue, tribe and nation of the world proudly glinted on the surface for all to see. Each chair represents authority, responsibility and a voice. Many of the chairs are vacant, others have stout, overweight “men” sitting in them, some seat more discreet looking men with a few that hold women - some who have the look of a noble.  All those seated send their voices forth to the center of the table in an attempt to discern which direction to go.  Most are ignored and a few speak over the rest, with short interludes of listening.

Sound like the league of nations? Not so fast, this one happens to be better, though at times mismanaged and unorganized. The difference is that the now defunct "League of Nations" was made up of the winners, the biggest and the most important countries.  They had many honorable pursuits to benefit the minorities of the world with their power but in the long haul - things didn't work out as well as they'd hoped.

The league we are talking about is different because it is a hopeful league.  This isn't the kind of hope that we "hope" for - it is hope that is actual yet hope that we still have to wait for.  At this league's table, there is actually a chair and a plaque to recognize each and every nation, tribe and tongue whether they are there or not. The problem is that not all are able to be in their seat yet. There are some who have already taken their seats who have long past set traps, misdirected, sent invitations without directions, sent directions and the unnecessary need to have an invitation, outright killed or booby-trapped and at some points sent away most of the missing representatives.

Other representatives have not been met or discovered yet? Their empty seats confuse some but others who have been around long enough know that once in awhile an unknown representative shows up, not because they are late, but because they show up in their own time which is on time or we could say "in the fullness of time."  Everyone is supposed to have a seat, but not everyone is supposed to show up at the same time. In real time, not all have the same voice, but in reality they all do have the same voice and so, all will one day  (already-not-yet). There is an organic process going on, not because organic is best but just because that’s the way it is. Nature just has a way of correcting itself (but not always).

Another problem has been and continues to be, “Why are so many seats still vacated…and how can we fill the seats?” The first question is great, the second one is lacking, lacking in respect and is the dilemma that we’re faced with today. The dilemma is not how to fill the seats, it is how to stop filling the seats and allow the occupants to come to those seats in their own time and in their own way. They may have needed to be there long ago, but pushing them there is not the solution. So what can be done?  It begins by clearing the path with appropriate and commensurate apologies.  The vacants may be fettered by or buffeted away by the overt efforts to get them there. Sometimes they are really pushed away by "help."   A track record has a way of following the pushers around. So a better second question would be, “how can we help to clear the littered path towards the cushioned seat, a path that we and others have historically littered upon and at times even set up road blocks upon. Road blocks have a funny way of reappearing though - in the opposite direction.  Dominant societies are annoyed and feel unfairly tampered with when these roadblocks are set up by those who’ve “had enough.”  What does this have to do with multiculturalism?  Well let's turn to an example of how this works out in principle.

My uncle Steve, a native of New Orleans, discovered a universal principle about multiculturalism when working on a ship with an international crew. He was working with two shipmates from Africa and began to befriend them.  As he interacted with them he began to notice that he couldn’t get past their hierarchical treatment of him.  They weren't treating him as an equal but rather as a superior despite the fact that they shared the same status on-board.  He tried and tried to undermine their overt treatment of him but to no avail.  It became increasingly frustrating for him. An even greater problem commenced when they realized that he wanted to be equal. He didn’t want to be above them, something they were literally pushing on him, he wanted to equal. They immediately set to work to amend their efforts and began treating him different - but now they treated him as if he were lower in status than they. They had understood from my uncle that a shift needed to take place and the obvious 2nd choice of the only two choices for them was to rise above him. So in utter frustration, he went back to being "above" them and they went back to being "below" him.

What universal principle was this – “To keep the upper hand, you must never shake the ‘other’ hand.”

We are called to realize that one way to grow into one’s identity is to actually limit oneself to oneself.  God has given each individual a deposit of glory.  How does that work?  How can human beings have glory?  Isn't God the only one to be glorious?  John 17 (The Message) teaches that the glory given to Christ by the Father has actually been passed on to us.

The New American Standard Bible says it like this in John 17: 22-23,


²²"The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one;
 ²³I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.

John 17: 20-23 in The Message translation renders it,


 ^20-23I'm praying not only for them
   But also for those who will believe in me
   Because of them and their witness about me.

   The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—
   Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
   So they might be one heart and mind with us.
 
   Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.
   
   The same glory you gave me, I gave them,
   So they'll be as unified and together as we are—
   I in them and you in me.
   Then they'll be mature in this oneness, 

   And give the godless world evidence
   That you've sent me and loved them
   In the same way you've loved me.

If the goal is to be of one heart and mind the Trinity, then the glory that is given to us - our unique and distinct identity - cannot be capitulated to anyone else and on the other side, we must not then accumulate the glory of the "other's" identity.  Creating space and the time needed for those distinct identities to be formed, embraced, graced and esteemed and then given distinction apart from the identity of the "other" is absolutely necessary for the goal of unity that multiculturalism needs and wants.  For us to be of one heart and mind the distinctions and borders of our unique identities need to be maintained, respected and esteemed.  The only time that these distinctions should be more fluid and porous is when a child is growing and developing under the care of a parent, spiritually or in a familial environment, but with the goal of eventually helping the child to create identity boundaries that  distinguish them from the parent.  If the parent doesn't do this, the child either rebels and disassociates from the parent too much (though this may be necessary for emotional health) or the child capitulates to the parents' identity and never truly receives their own identity.  For some parents, this is exactly what they want as it is a way of accumulating their child's identity/glory to placate their own insecurities.  The healthy parent creates space for the child to "borrow" from the parent's identity until they are able to settle into their own identity through the process of maturation, education, social and sexual development and the resulting individual.  The child leaves the dinner table of their parents in order to establish their own dinner table and once they have, they bring their own dinner table back to the family reunion and add it to the conglomerate puzzle of other "tables" that have now been received by their siblings.  They all add their tables to the edges of their progenitor's (parents) table.  Altogether, a larger and more fruitful table of plenty is created, but not without distinction of the individual tables, which have the ability to remove themselves whenever they want to, but they increasingly don't want to as long as the edges of their table are recognized, appreciated and given respect.  Sometimes, other family members will turn into carpenters and will seek to miter the edges of the tables so that they can be glued and joined.  It's an on-going struggle that never ends requiring each participating member at some points and to some degree to remind those at the table, that their tables has edges, sharp edges if necessary and though they would love to keep the tables together, they may need to take their table and go home if it is not respected.  This may sound like taking one's ball and going home - but that may be necessary if your friends don't care that it's your ball, they throw at it your head and continually don't let you play with it when you bring it out to play with them.  Sometimes taking your ball home is the only way for people understand that you aren't there to be relegated to a place of demoted indignity for their entertainment.  Instead you are there to contribute, participate, compete and have fun.  Taking your ball home because you're being selfish, narcissistic and manipulative is a different story.  

While in Singapore, a clear example of rightly identifying with one's core identity while still capitulating to the identity of another reared up.  I was visiting the historic Bugis Mall, a cosmopolitan center for the city of Singapore.  One would think walking through this extravaganza of consumerism that this could be any mall anywhere in the U.S. or the U.K.  All the same major labels, brands and stores were present with the exact same advertising and styles.  It was sad that at the expense of their own cultural identity, the advertising models that portrayed these styles, donned the new clothes, and portrayed the good life of consumerism were predominantly "white."  Blue eyes, blonde hair and translucent skin was everywhere on the placards.  I remember seeing maybe one or two dark-skinned models while the rest were definitely Euro-American in the appearance.   I looked around at the shoppers and my heart dropped because each of these beautiful Singapore women were being told that to be white and to wear these clothes was the "ideal" expression of style that was necessary to embrace.  By allowing this to go on, they were degrading their own cultural and colored identity on some level.

Saddened, I walked out into the hallways and ventured upon some stand alone plaques that were strung out throughout the hallways accessing each store.  On the plaques, historical explanations of the history and pride of the people of Singapore donned the interior of this ironic consumer experience.  One such story explained that the well known "Bogeyman" was actually tied to this area of the world.  When the British explorers happened onto the region surrounding Singapore, a tribal trading group who had navigated those seas for centuries was being pushed out by the dominating Dutch nautical trading industry.  For a long time, the "Bugis pirates" (pronounced boo-gee), as they were known to the traders from Europe, had dominated the trading routes from Indonesia all the way to Australia.  They were known for being fearless in their battle to establish trade routes among the islands South East Asia and thus established a pronounced reputation for being both fierce and industrious.   As the British East India Company moved into this region, they soon realized that in order to compete with the Dutch, they had to form an alliance with the Bugis.  The placard read that an alliance was formed and the port of Singapore was created to be a staging ground for their new found partnership that would then give the upper hand that they both needed against the Dutch.    The irony, between these placards celebrating their indigenous identity in the center aisle of the mall, alongside the advertising placards of a culture so far removed from theirs was astonishing.

What does this tell us about embracing identity - that it's hard, it's complex and while many right appropriations of one's identity can be taking place, other aspects of one's identity can be lacking.  This process of embracing identity is not easy and has many ironies but it is worth pursuing, even it is seems that the goal to be achieved requires an endless pursuit.  That being said, the pursuit of "becoming" who you really are is most likely not supposed to end but it does have a healthy direction.  That direction is what we're after in this post.  So how do set our intention like flint in the right direction - by resisting the temptation to muster one's worth and identity based upon the worth and identity of the "other."  Positively, it is to embrace your own identity thereby providing an environment for your God-given glory to flourish as well as the permission for others to do the same.  Like Marianne Williamson once said, "We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."  

Sadly though, the temptation that continually presents itself to us, is the temptation to muster one’s worth by doing one of two things.  Instead of the freedom of one's own embodied identity with it's consequent but healthy limitations, we either accumulate the glory of others or  capitulate our own glory to the other.  Ultimately, we gain an inauthentic identity and our core degenerates into self-hatred, which then is projected onto the other as hatred of the "other."
One will not give what one has not first received and conversely, one will give what one has received.  If one has received self hatred, they will give away hatred of self.  We feel like the only way to numb this reality is a dismal spiral into more capitulation or accumulation presented in detail with these two paths.  Christ has presented a third way to rescue us from this deathly spiral, a way of affirmation, celebration, collaboration and dignity.  We will get to that eventually.

1. The first path to gain an inauthentic identity is to overwhelm the “other” and appropriate them underneath you by demeaning them, enslaving them, dejecting them, using them, resisting their equality, etc… Basically the idea is that we feel better about ourselves (our self-affirmed identity) by putting down the others (their identity). So the way to go up is by pushing down, by stealing their glory or accepting it from them willingly.  We also keep what’s already down down or even push them further down however we can do so. This isn't just an act of lowering the "other" but lowering them to a place that then pushes us up.  Essentially we are using their God given embodied identity and dignity for our own use and our own sense of control over our own worth.  By pushing them down we are actually pulling them close.  By pushing ourselves up at their expense we are knitting a loop between our hearts and theirs.
we essentially are joining ourselves to them by pushing them down and the lines of distinction that make them them and us us are now more porous and less distinct.

Is this intersubjective interchange wrong?  Of course not - it is God's design - it s the way of the shepherd - it is the becoming one of marriage - it is the relational space of parenting and the "becoming" of a child.  This interchange of intertwining our heart with the "other" happens whether we like it or not but when it is done to dominate rather than to shepherd, when it is done to consume rather than consummate, when it is done tyrannically over against the the "other" rather than tirelessly on behalf of the other, it becomes imperialism rather than cooperation, it becomes usery rather than love, or it becomes tyranny rather than sacrificial benevolence.  Though the act of domination has short term effectiveness, it actually works to destroy one’s own core identity as well as the identity of the "other."  This is because it still avoids the nascent steps necessary to forming a healthy identity of one's own self. If I appropriate the effect that another’s identity, the weight that their own glory has - the effect it could have had on me or on others - for myself, I am circumventing the slow but necessary formation of my own identity.  If I steal their glory – I may be lead away from the limitations of my own singular identity - the effectiveness of my own glory but I exchange my own 'real' self, with all of its healthy limitations, for the conflagration and accumulation of many selves from the “other” who surrounds me.  I desire to accumulate the effects of their personal glory instead of allowing my own glorious identity to come to fruition, which requires perseverance, testing and difficulties that in my selfishness, I don't want to undergo.  We can all do this to some degree. Governments do it, bullies at school do it, parents at home do it, manipulators do it, pastors do it, I do it, Fox News does it, CNN does it, my child does it, my boss does it, my co-worker does it, America does, Luxembourg does it, we all do it.  We all at some point attempt to accumulate the glory that belongs to the "other" in order to control our insecurities and our inherent lack of self worth that comes with being a fallen human being.

2. The 2nd way to gain an inauthentic identity is to give away one’s identity to another who is famous, older, more respected, envied, one who willingly leads, one who gives security, a person, sect, group or gang who will give you an established identity and immediate respect in exchange for your unquestioned allegiance to them and their ideals, etc… This identity seeking method wants someone that is “more” to become responsible for you, who are “less.” In this method we accept that we are less so that they can be more.  This promotes the same dynamic that the previous point made - that when you discontinue the distinction between you and the other either by dominating the "other" or by elevating and impersonating the dominator, you only receive an inauthentic identity.  There are many reasons why we allow this to happen.  Some allow the dominator to give them a sense of identity so that they don’t have to be as responsible for their own growth, issues, talents, calling, mistakes(aspects of identity).  You name it - there are plenty of things in our lives we don't want to take responsibility for.  We'd much rather have someone else do it for us - someone who has it all "together," someone who has proven themselves or has lead others or someone that we fear or want to fear.  We give permission to the "more" people to be something for us, who are the "less" people, because we actually fear being who we are really supposed to be.  We also want someone to blame for our mistakes other than ourselves.  We project our issues our pathologies and our faults onto the leader of our choice so as to not face them down ourselves.  We can only do this by allowing the "leader" in our lives to be more than just an example.  We ignore their faults or look over them.  They ultimately become more than what they are supposed to be in our lives,  They begin to have access to the formation of our identity that can almost be akin to the dynamics of demonic possession.  They think for us, speak for us, direct for us and we begin to integrate their anger, their opinions, their limited perspectives into most of our responses.  We defend them to no end and attack those that attack our leader.  We can sacrifice our own ethics and boundaries for their sake in order to preserve our allegiance to them, even if that allegiance requires that we diminish our own dignity, betray our own conscience and give away our own glory to them.  Symbiotically, we acquire our own self designed security from them whilst they accumulate our portion of the glory and dignity that God has deposited in us.  He, she or they then become our conscience, our ethic maker, our boundary marker, our creed creator, etc...  We end up looking more like them than we look like ourselves, we end up sounding like them than sounding like ourselves and in the end their "image" is spread and their "glory" fills the earth rather than God's image and God's glory.

We not only want someone to take responsibility on our behalf - we also want someone to take the blame on our behalf - which is only possible when our heart and identity is intertwined with the person who is "more."  We need someone to blame other than ourselves as it was with Eve, Adam and then Cain.  Orchestrating a lifestyle by which we can circumvent responsibility in all of its capacities is at the core of this second path to an inauthentic identity.  Both of these paths converge and form the wide path of idolatry.   To become oneself, truly oneself, takes time, hard work and perseverance and it is scary at times. It also requires that we receive, truly receive, from Got only that which He wants to give - which will blow our minds if we give up on our own machinations.  The process of truly becoming oneself does provide freedom but also uncomfortable limitations.  We can fear both the freedom and the discomfort of those limitations, which is ultimately a fear of our true self.

In the film, Akeelah and the Bee (2006), Akeelah has this conversation with her professor about her own identity and ultimately the glory that God has put into her - her created and embodied identity,

Akeelah: [quoting Marianne Williamson] Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
Dr. Larabee: Does that mean anything to you?
Akeelah: I don't know.
Dr. Larabee: It's written in plain English. What does it mean?
Akeelah: That I'm not supposed to be afraid?
Dr. Larabee: Afraid of what?
Akeelah: Afraid of... me? 

(There are other ways that we ignore/lose our identity that could be discussed like doing so because of the shame associated with one's historic cultural or dysfunctional identity.  We can also spite our own identity by embracing the identity of the 'other.'  Many more descriptors could be presented as to why identity is never gained, rarely embraced, only half appreciated or just plain lost, but that isn't the focus for this topic so we'll move on.  The point does need to be made that there are more paths to describe identity issues than what I've presented, but what I've presented is not an attempt to summarize and include every issue surrounding identity.)


The temptation is to shortchange this process of coming into one’s identity by either giving ourselves away for the sake of security which also provides "belonging" (giving away our God-given glory).  The 2nd way discussed is by accumulating the identities (glory) of others for oneself and by giving them a place to belong in, but where they belong to the leader who is medicating his or her own insecurities.  We gain this security by capitulating to a more established identity or by appropriating and accumulating the “other’s” identity to myself in order to amass their glory, their security for myself. These two directions of capitulation and accumulation end up marrying each other and go on for long periods of time in a co-dependent destructive relationship. Is anyone safe? No. From parenting to colonialism, from fashion mongering to pastoring, from over-priced education to school yard bullies, we all do it.  

Hence, the way to be multi-cultural is not necessarily the quick fix of pushing people together. It is creating space for each identity to take their seat at the great table of dialogue. If we haven’t historically allowed that to happen by pushing people out of their seats or into their seats, by either making them sit on the ground or hiring them to serve the buffet while the real conversation happens by those sitting down, we really haven't done multi-culturalism.  It is one of the most difficult plateaus of reality to achieve - but one of the most important in God's grand narrative of redemption.  As we nurture and nourish the God-given glory of our identity and the identities of the "other", we will all flourish, and that flourishing is what glorifies God.  It is the path of glorifying God.  One of our beloved church fathers said it best,

"The glory of God is man fully alive."  - St. Irenaeus


So how do we make space for each others' place at the table?

We do it...

1. By receiving our proper and limited space at the table,

2. By embracing yet limiting ourselves to our own path to the formation of our identity,

3. By knowing where we end and where the “other” begins

4. By taking only our seat instead of our seat and then the seat of so many "others.'

5. By knowing that God is glorified when our identity flourishes unto itself, yet interdependently within the community of the world.

5. By recognizing and honoring distinct identities (generationally, ethnically, geographically)among our common humanity.

6. By recognizing the that distinct identities are not just ethnic/racial - distinct identities can be epistemological, generational, religious, occupational, vocational, gendered, sexual, etc...


So what does this have to do with the predominantly white and suburban Emerging Church?  We will discuss that in "The Mistakes of Multiculturalism Part 4."  Weighing in will be Dave Gibbons, author of "The Monkey and the Fish: Liquid Leadership for a Third Culture Church"

Is spiritual "affirmative action" necessary as the best route in the body of Christ or is it more damaging in the long run?  Is there a way that Christ has laid out for responsible and dignifying multi-culturalism to take place?

Failure = Success

The mistakes of multi-culturalism part 2

Generally, we can agree on the strengths of multi-culturalism, but what about it’s weaknesses?

Growing up in a town that was split between two dominant ethincities, First Nations and Euro-Canadian, I saw firsthand how two communities can ignore each other while living right next to each other. There are always exceptions but having grown up in both communities, I couldn't help but see the rift, culturally, ideologically, economically, etc...

Because of my parents’ commitment to be among the First Nations community (they’re still there) I was able to be in both communities throughout my childhood and adolescence. An issue that kept coming up over and over again was how to do church and be the church in a community that was obviously split right down the middle in so many ways. The “white” church in town had a building, programs, a strong core community and a solid history within the community.

As children, we were aware that our parents had come to this little town in Western British Columbia to be a part of what God was doing to birth a First Nations Church among the Statlimx people in the interior of that great province. In the first years my family attended the “white” church but eventually broke off to commit themselves completely to the First Nations community. When that decision was made, we were commissioned by this community in a good way, but still misunderstood by some.  From some, there was no small disagreement in this family that had nurtured our growth and Christian need for community from the first year that we arrived as a family. Why did they disagree?

Well, it had been my parents’ intention from the beginning to be there for the First Nations community and that had been made clear. Otherwise they wouldn’t have considered a little town in Western Canada to be their home, where they would raise their children and where they will probably pass from this life into the next and be buried. Some from our very loved "white" church had assumed that in order to be faithful, we needed to be multi-cultural and do community together as one community and we could do it in their building since they were already meeting, had space and were hoping to see their church grow.  For my parents, they had realized very soon that if they didn’t have a mono-cultural environment for the Native to community to discover Christ and grow up in their love for him – it wouldn’t happen.

What wouldn’t happen – a distinct First Nations expression of faith, practice and belief would not come into being. There were some years where the First Nations community did visit the “white” church but historically, this proved to produce disappointing results and not because anything was done to hurt them but because of the need for distinctives.  Why do we need distinctives in our expression of belief and practice?  If every tribe, tongue and nation is to stand before Christ worshiping one day, each tribe, tongue and nation will need to do so in their own distinct way - the way that God created them to worship him, both distinctively and corporately.  In order to be "truly corporate" in our worship of the Creator, we need to be "honestly distinctive" and to recognize and honor others in their distinctiveness instead of begrudging them of their identity so that they'll just do it our way.  Getting others do to it our way may be more expedient but it is ultimately sinful and imperialistic.  For a First Nations community to worship both distinctively Native but also within a corporately diverse Christian community, some incubation time is still needed to allow their distinctives to be retrieved, appreciated and recognized by self and others - something that has historically been a bloodied battle ground.  Organizations like Wiconi International and NAIITS (North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies) are pioneering this project among others like  Broken Walls, a First Nations worship band that writes and composes songs that can be sung to the Creator in a Native way.  Criticism and praise has been received by these organizations by those who think that syncretism is right around the corner.  Jonathan Maracle, the lead singer for Broken Walls, once asked a white church, "If our drum is evil, then what makes your Yamaha piano holy?"  There are questions and concerns of contextualization and syncretism that need answers but require the input and valued insight of First Nations Christians more than (but not exclusively) others and therefore space and recognition is required for this to take place. 

Historically, certain ethnicities have always dominated the cultural milieus that exist, ideologically, politically, economically, etc...  Faith communities are no exemption.  I remember speaking with a Native friend when we were just teenagers and asking him about choosing to follow Christ.  He had one issue holding him back, that I had to wait for patiently.  Eventually he disclosed, "If I become a Christian then my friends will think that I'm betraying them."  I asked him to explain what he meant, "If I become a Christian then my friends say that I'm not an Indian, that I'm not one of them and that I'm betraying them."  To understand this, one would have to study how the church in this last century has historically participated in one of the most horrific and pervasive cultural genocides this continent has seen.  One cannot fathom the destruction that was wrought (some can I'm sure) by the U.S. and Canadian governments with the churches as their partners among First Nations people of North America.  So to be Indian, is to not be a "Christian" in more ways than one.  So for a solid and contextualized Native expression of church to come into being, these and other concerns had to be taken into consideration.  As such, they have had to do it on their own for awhile.  This provides an environment where they can answer their own questions as they search the Scriptures and where they can respond to Christ in their own way, thus providing a long overdue and culturally distinct approach to their God, who is as much theirs as he is ours. 

So, in order to be responsibly and faithfully multi-cultural, is it necessary to be mono-cultural for a season, even a long season?  More coming in part 3.

Soong-Chan Rah and The Mistakes of Multi-culturalism

The Emerging church is blamed for being too white, too young and too mono-cultural and lately for being too dead. The most scathing critique is that there are few if any minorities involved in the movement. The first time I heard this was when D.A. Caron, one of the leaders of the Gospel Coalition, remarked that Crawford Lorritts said something like this to him regarding the Emerging Church movement during the 2007 Gospel Coalition conference,

"Of course there's a sense in which from the point of view of the African American community, the Emerging Church movement is basically a movement of rich white kids who have their dad's platinum cards and can thus pay for their journey along the road."

The audio can be found here

If you want to hear Crawford's quote as stated by D.A. Carson it begins at about the 12:00 minute mark.


Lately, Soong-Chan Rah has written in his book, The Next Evageliscalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity about the Emerging Church being too white and even more recently an article from Sojourners Magazine gave Dr. Rah a chance to write (along with a student at North Park Seminary) more detail on is perspective.  Chances to respond were given to Julie Clawson and Brian McLaren, to spokespeople from the Emerging Church family.  The article can be found here

In the article Rah and Mach researched the emerging church's ethnic orientation and Dr. Rah had this to say,

"At the time the emerging church was coming into vogue, I was pastoring a multi-ethnic, urban church plant in the Boston area. It seemed that every brochure for nearly every pastors’ conference I received featured the emerging church. As I began to attend some of those conferences, I noticed that every single speaker who claimed to represent the emerging church was a white male. A perception was forming that this was a movement and conversation occurring only in the white community."

So why is that seemingly true?  Why are there so many white guys and girls in the Emerging Church movement?  Some would say it is because the EC is a reaction against modernity's influence on the conservative from of Evangelicalism - the search for certainty (which is not Christian but human) through Biblical exposition and propositions.  Some would say it is a long overdue re-alignment of the Gospel with social justice.  Why the re-alignment - apparently  because of the theological witch hunt that many conservatives went on in decades past to protect the Gospel from Liberation theology, the World Council of Churches' dismal failure and the Social Gospel.  The result being that social justice and mercy ministries were relegated to the place of little importance or a tool to get people saved - which was the real deal.

Recently in a conversation that I was having with two African American students on campus at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, I asked them why they thought that the Emerging Church movement wasn't as prevalent or even known in the African American community.  They were surprised to hear about some of the aspects of it but when I asked more pointed questions, one of the girls laughed and said in so many words, "We have always been the emerging church.  Social justice has always been a part of who we because the social needs of our communities have always been right in front of us - that's how you do the Gospel." 

Most African American communities skipped the invasion of modernity into every aspect of their culture and thereby didn't need to be post-modern because they were largely never modern (with exceptions of course).  So what bearing does that have on Crawford's earlier remark and did Dr. Rah do enough research into why some whites are drawn to the elements of the Emerging Church movement as opposed to why large swaths of other ethnicities aren't?  It is frustrating that whatever white males do can always stink with the stench of imperialism instead of understanding how white people form their cultural identities alongside everyone else.  Imperialism is an issue but it isn't the greatest contributor to the distinctives that  make up a people group's cultural identity (though it can play a part).

Epistemology, the study of how we know what we know, is much more the issue at hand rather than the color of skin.  So how do we do multi-culturalism responsibly without making blunders along the way (which is ultimately impossible but we can do a better job)?  If multi-culturalism is good are there any mistakes to be made along the way and have we made some already?  What are the mistakes of this ideal push for multi-culturalism?  I will discuss that from a First Nations perspective in my next post.

Breaking News: Police Brutality for Christians

Mega Church Mania

Is it wrong to make fun of stuff like this? Sometimes

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

Tim Keller on the fence?

Tim Keller recently spoke at the recent Q conference on the contested issue between justification and justice?  Out of Ur reported on his presentation here.  How are they related and how are they unrelated?  Which one is more important or which one comes first?  Are they part of the same message or is one the central message and the other follows as an implication.  Generally I have heard Tim Keller, a leader of the Gospel Coalition, teach that the Gospel is the Gospel of Justification by faith through Christ's death and resurrection.  Once we as sinners are justified and set free from the condemnation of our sin by faith in Christ, we have received the Gospel - therefore the Gospel is strictly our justification by Christ's death and resurrection.  In an interview with D.A. Carson and John Piper, Keller outlines that he agrees with this clearly,



The question remains - is the Gospel just justification or is it what N.T. Wright projects as the rescue, redemption and reconciliation of all things, (Colossians 1:19 and the full passage of I Corinthians 15)?  Keller goes on to explain this further in the first part of this video,




Tim Keller is helping a lot of people and is a great teacher and communicator.  I believe that he doesn't want to fall on one side of this issue or the other because he's trying to forge a via media.  Some have called this the "third way" kind of thinking which is fine I guess.  There are many third ways that are helpful but this is not one of them.  Tim is hard to nail down on this issue - he's on the fence in a manner of speaking.  I can appreciate what he's trying to do but it might cause confusion.  Either way, he seems to be saying two different things.  On one hand he is in agreement with Carson and Piper's view of how we do social justice and mercy ministries but on the other hand he wants to say that justice and justification joined at the hip and should be view through the lens of a "both/and" rather than an "either/or" perspective.  I couldn't agree more with the exception that it doesn't seem like he really believes that.

What he believes it seems is that justification comes first and then an obvious implication from a human being justified is social justice.  Social justice has no place in the definition of the Gospel because it is not the Gospel or an aspect of the Gospel - it is only an implication that follows the Gospel - the Gospel Christ's death and resurrection that sets us free from the condemnation of sin.  Therefore instead of a "both/and" view he is actually positing a "this/then that" view.  Social justice is not the Gospel because it comes after the Gospel.  This is an effort to protect the definition of the Gospel from being appropriated like it has been in the past and being widened so far that it loses its justification foundation.  That's a good concern, but we need to revisit the lost cause of the battle between social justice/the social Gospel and the fundamentalist clinging to the proclamation of the Gospel as primary.  If we revisit this debate, it is possible that a new way of inter-relating these two poles could come into existence.

Either way, it seems that Keller is still riding the fence on this one with a few quotes and comments here and there to put him on either side.  Is the Gospel on about Jesus dying and resurrecting to free us from spiritual death or is it the whole message of reconciliation and redemption of all things - which includes and even elevates humanity's redemption but not to the exclusion of everything else as being part of the Gospel's reconciliatory effects.  Our redemption may be the first fruits of the Gospel's effects but it's not the only fruit.  If sin's effects are as complicated and pervasive as they are, the Gospel's effect has to be as pervasive and effective and more.  Christ told his disciples to preach the Gospel even before he died or they understood how his death would play a role in the Gospel.  The book of Hebrews teaches that the Old Testament saints had the Gospel preached to them.  If that's the case then the Gospel has to be the whole message of redemption that has been communicated throughout both Testaments, not only the work of the cross for our justification but the work of the Trinity to redeem all things so that God might be all in all (I Corinthians 15). 

Jim Belcher, Francis Chan, N.T. Wright, and Others Leave the Pastorate to Write and Speak | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Pastors are leaving the pastorate for writing and teaching careers. Is this a good thing or a pejorative path to avoid the difficulties of working with people instead of paper and podiums? I have appreciated Steve Taylor's comments in the comment section on this post. By the way, Peter Rollins as far as I know hasn't moved to the US. He's on a one year visit to speak, write and interact with people who appreciate his writing in the US. A few names to add to this list would be Ravi Zacharias, Ed Stetzer and Alan Hirsch among many others.

Jim Belcher, Francis Chan, N.T. Wright, and Others Leave the Pastorate to Write and Speak | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Craigslist for Creeps

They are found on the internet.  Trafficking of sofas, computers and children...

Stealing quotes!

I'm stealing more quotes and this time they are from - Dave Fitch's blog, "Reclaiming the Mission."  Here is one of the few that he posted as his favorite for the year.


“There are many Kingdom churches that don’t know what the cross is about and there are many cross churches which don’t know what the Kingdom is about … the Kingdom and the cross go inextricably together. They cannot be separated from each other.”  - N.T. Wright

Pastors - whipping boys or fraternal fathers

Pastoring is a weird vocation.  Have you  ever thought where they came from?  What impresses God and how should our pastors be impressive?  Why do we call them pastors when the leadership gifts in the New Testament are actually in a list of 5 - pastor being only one of them.  Apostle, Prophet, Pastor, Evangelist and Teacher makes up the list but only one of them is given leadership in churches and maybe one or two of the other can work for him.  Some are more forgiving and gracious than I am, but part of the reason I have hard time being so, is that I have been an associate pastor and a quasi youth pastor. 

Should I be gracious, yes.  Is it difficult to be so, yes? 

The pastor of The Church of the Open Door came to speak at Trinity on "celebrating the pastorate" and his last comment before he walked out went something like this, "A pastor will always have a ministry but may not always have a job.  If you're not willing to lose your job as a pastor, then you are not supposed to be a pastor.  When a pastor focuses on being conventionally nice and making people happy - nothing prophetic comes out of his mouth and he loses his ability to be who he is, but in turn doesn't lose his job.  A true pastor will always have a ministry but may not always have a job."    (This is not an exact quote)

Dave Fitch  writes from his blog - “Because our pastors have been so trained to understand the ministry in terms of their own success, we have thousands of them who are either manic-depressive or egomaniacs.”

So what does it mean to be a pastor and why do we focus on them to lead our churches and be the top dog?  Where do the other 4 leadership gifts come in?  Let's stop hurting their ability to live, to disciple and remove the ornate soap boxes we've given them and put away our whips.  They are our brothers who we have given the ability to be fathers.  They live in a difficult tension because they are nothing more than who we are as people - brothers and sisters working together and yet they have a responsibility to lead us.  We need to discontinue choosing them based upon their height, their smooth tongue, their strong personalities and their ability to play politics but ignore the prophetic potency of truth.  I wan to put away our whips, break down our soap boxes and stand in comradery with our brothers who are our fathers as they lead us. 

Jesus is Better but what is Best?

In the book of Hebrews there is a recognition of the faith of the Old Testament saints as a really good thing.  Then there is the recognition that our position in Christ "better."  It seems then there is a movement from good to better.  As a result, I've heard it taught that "Jesus is Better" when studying the book of Hebrews.  This is the statement that best describes Hebrews as many have taught.  Yet in Hebrews there is still a tension that projects that more is yet to come that is even better.  So is there a best?  If Jesus is better, then what is best? 

We see aspects of a realized eschatology present in the book and at the same time an unrealized eschatology.  There is an "already not yet" pattern throughout the whole letter.  So to whatever extent Christ's work accomplished better things through his incarnation, death, resurrection and ascension, there are still many things that need to happen in the future according to what has happened.  Is he the only one acting or are there others?  What place does the church have in all of this, a church that he has "sent?"  What about the other members of the Trinity?  So some better things have happened since the coming of Jesus yet some more things are still to happen.  Is it possible that these things might fit into the superlative, the best, aspect of what God is accomplishing in salvation history. 

So if Jesus is better, what is the best?  

The hopeless relationship between Faith and Reason

Reason and Faith are like two betrothed infants - totally unaware of each other in their early development or acutely unaware.  They may sit in the same classroom, play with the same friends and grow up in the same neighborhood but haven't been introduced to each other.  They eventually do grow up become introduced, check each other out and hate each other, have a few fights, and eventually avoid each other at all costs.  A few people try to reconcile them because they see a possible fit, others try to assist them to no end in avoiding each other through maligning, gossip and tearing down the "opponent's" credibility.  Secretly in their hearts, they are heavily attracted to each other and have pining moments of desire and a few fleeting chances to re-connect. 

At present they are living their lives pursuing their passions and secretly (though not so secret to some) they long for each other.  While some are hopeful and working tirelessly to set up environments for them to "encounter" each other, the enemies of their union work tirelessly in the opposite direction.. They demean one or the other in order to install their proponent as the innocent and more discerning member of the pair.  Often enough they cross paths in their vocations, their vacations and their favorite gas stations, and their posture towards each other is at times increasingly favorable, but they still haven't been able to sit down for coffee and just get to know each other. 

I am of the hopeless sort, but not hopelessness of this world, a hopelessness that is from God - hopelessness that is assured by what I believe to be true.  Faith and Reason will meet and actually I believe they will marry, based upon their prior betrothal as well as their coming marriage of love.  I also believe they will bear many children, healthy children who will create a legacy of love, revelation, transformation and beauty.  Love takes time, heritages take time, time to grow up and mature, time to become aware of oneself and of the other, time to interact - to hate, to love and time to make a decision.  Just because one is betrothed to another, that doesn't remove the necessary growth of the organism of love in your and the other's heart.  We have to both be committed and commit to the growth of our commitment, but that commitment requires love, a  love relationship between Faith and Reason.  Are they there yet?  No.  Will they be?  - to that I would say "I am hopeless romantic."

Interview with Dallas Willard

Dallas Willard responds to issues of Atonement.

Interview with Dallas Willard

The Evangelical Habitus*

This link is hilarious - it's good to laugh at ourselves.

The Evangelical Habitus*

Its' Healthy To Laugh At Ourselves - Christianese is a language.

I Can't resist posting this - have fun!

Going to Heaven in a Residential School bus

Left Behind but on the Bus

Left Behind - the eschatology of the 20th century, kick-started by promoting a disembodied view of what man really is, has had its profound Displacement effect upon us as Christians.  For so long we have thought and were taught that we were going to go to heaven, that our bodies weren't important, that earth wasn't important and that whether it was important or not, the point is to get us to heaven, because that is what we love, need and want.

We should not want this world, to renew this world, to care for the physical needs of others to appreciate what humanism offers in spite of its anti-God point of view.  What if humanism is just an extreme of a much more foundational view of how we are designed to view our own humanity - a design given by God?  N.T. Wright discusses this in his latest lecture at Wheaton's theological lecture from last week.

Depending upon God too much?

What if humanism is actually a pendulum swing that swung far enough in the opposite direction of an extreme Theism that had us depending upon God too much and ignoring the role that our humanity has always been set to play in this grand drama of redemption.  We are meant to, in our humanity, do a lot more, be a lot more and accomplish a lot more than we actually think possible.  This is best taught from the book of Ephesians.  Does this push God out of the picture - no but it pulls us into a picture that we were always supposed to be in.  We are the puzzle piece that we have tried to fit with God - yes the puzzle is about God and is full of pieces of God, but what if his design is that we are actually a bigger part of the puzzle than we initially thought possible?  I think we are and to dislocate our telos - the goal of redemption to a place up in the sky away from the good earth and the good bodies and the good creation that God has created and wants to restore is much the same experience that the First Nation children and their families experienced over 50 years ago through the Residential School system.

Civilizing our Way

In the 1900's all over Canada, the U.S., New Zealand and Australia, Indigenous people groups had their children literally kidnapped from them systematically by the acting governments and the Anglican and Catholic church (a meager attempt but destructive attempt at ecumenism).  The idea was that the only way to have the Indigenous people's of these westernizing nations "catch up" with civilization was to educate them.  Education is a great idea, if you remove the kidnapping, strategic displacement, sexual abuse, physical abuse, imperialistic religious instruction, beatings for speaking one's own language, and spiritual figures who don't give a $@#! about your identity unless you took on a "Christian" identity, spoke their language, wore their clothes, and haircuts and acted with "propriety" according to their customs and culture.  Becoming civilized sure could lose a lot its baggage - or as it should be called - pure evil.

If I sound angry it is because I am.  Some of my longest known friends and adopted family had to endure the most atrocious of these acts in their lifetimes and today find it very difficult to look with any sense of favor on anything to do with church, Christianity, the Bible or faith - a faith that I embrace and a church that I love by people I embrace and families that I love.

Tamar tells All

The fulcrum effect of this has left First Nation communities with layer and layers of shame, pain and disdain for their pain by those who caused it.  It is much like the story of Tamar - the daughter of David in the Bible.  She was "loved" by her half brother who couldn't control his raging lust so he raped her.  Afterward, she told him that he would have to marry her to compensate for the wrong (which was understood to be the way that this could be solved - wow) and care for her but instead he rejected her and the Bible said he hated her after more than he had loved her.  A nations abuse and rape of another's causes the offender's cultural sensitivities to be fully deadened and they begin to hate that which they were enamored by or at the least humored by.  There are many ways to deal with this growing and self-inflicted disdain - our nation chose the worst option - a second displacement - the displacement of our concern, guilt, our own shame and the people themselves.  Not only did we rape them of their culture, identity and family, but in order to deal with the guilt we hid from them and became indifferent toward the aftermath of their plight and we continue to do so today.  Like Tamar's offender, we have offended twice and the second offence is worse than the first.

The Second Cut is the Deepest

To know that one has offended the "other" and to be aware of the offended "other" right in front of your eyes and then to act as if the offense never took place - to attempt to normalize an obvious act of evil with the person whom you have wronged so deeply - is a greater and deeper offense than the first.  It is not even an act of deception because both parties are fully aware but only the offender has the power to do something about it but chooses to do nothing and moves to normalization and as soon as possible - to act as if it the offense had not even happened.  This is evil destroys oneself and the "other" at a level that is almost irreversible. 


 Resurrection on the 'Rez'


This description can mirror what we've done to ourselves through our previous eschatology - we have disdained our own identity - our embodied selves and have sought a gnostic emancipation from this "body of death" that only brings pain, suffering and loss.  In so doing we have split our identity and deemed that which God called good, evil or at the least - we have become indifferent that which God has given great attention and focus to.  We have displaced our embodied identity, dismissed its place in the good creation and the ever looming eschaton and have dreamed of a world where we won't have bodies, our earth, the good creation anymore.  We have displaced our identity?  The second evil - the evil of indifference towards our first offense can still be reversed, still be unlayered with the shame that we have piled onto our eschatological selves.

Guess who might be the best to lead us there?  That's right - our First Nations Brothers and Sisters.  They have travailed, torn away from the power of oppression, from the demise of identity, from the loss and are beginning to stand again, with pride, wisdom and forgiveness.  This forgiveness will be what heals us, what restores us.  God didn't intend for Tamar's offender to just come to Him, God, and ask for forgiveness, he was supposed to ask for forgiveness from her and to do whatever he could to restore to her what he had taken, as difficult as that may be.  As David so readily judged the wealthy neighbor who stole the only sheep from his poor neighbor to feed his guests, we too can so easily judge David's son who raped Tamar.  But where are we in that story?  We may need to begin asking.  This is not only for the sake of those we have offended but for ours too.  Mutual restoration is at hand.  Let's quit the one way benefits and pray that we don't colonialize our efforts.  This can't be done unless we ask, unless we know, unless we become aware.  The peace we desire, the shame we want to shed and holistic healing we need will need to be given and one cannot be given what they need until they are ready to ask and receive.

S. Kierkegaard's pedagogy

"God's education consists in leading one to being able to do freely what at first one had to be compelled to do"

Soren Kierkegaard, C.S. Lewis and narcissist "I"

"At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference."   - Soren K.


"The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference."   - C.S. Lewis


"Lack of intention rather than ill intention is the greatest evil."  - N. Smith
(can you quote yourself?  what?)

The Insecurities of God

In a recent blog roll started by Scot McKnight about Brian McLaren's new book A New Kind of Christianity, a comment made by John Sylvest (comment #60) had this to say mid way through...

"As Brian put it to me, for the gospel to incarnate into a culture is very different from a culture co-opting the gospel." 

They are discussing Scot's critique of Brian and his neo-liberation theology.  John's response is that Brian is proposing more of a Theology of Liberation that is faithful rather than a resurgence of liberation theology.

In his own words he writes, "I would counter that Brian has not embraced a subversive liberation ideology but has articulated a sound theology of liberation, as systematically consistent with his other Franciscan sensibilities ( see Leonardo Boff's Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor)"

We are faced with the temptation every day to domesticate God and the Gospel for our purposes and to allay our fears.  Our culture's greatest fears look to the answers which are most readily available - the ones that offer the path of least resistance.  The Good News that God has always been telling and that Jesus told best (better than Paul?) is part of this process of God's incarnational activity to introduce the Good Virus of the Gospel into our sick and broken culture in order to heal it.  The culture is good but broken and is being redeemed but how does God do that?

In reference to Sylvest's prior comment, I would say God actually co-opts human culture to incarnate the Gospel.  The problem for a lot of people of faith is that this does not allow God to be a strict purist or an originalist (He doesn't have any insecurities so he has no need to be wholly original as he communicates).  We want him to come up with most of his revelatory methods and rituals apart from co-opting the cultures that form our identity as humanity.  We want him to be completely other when he defines who He is to us.  We can't have that - it's impossible but we want it because of our innate human insecurities.  We need him to be original, not to hi-jack or borrow from the "world."   On the other hand, we do need fixed and formal categories to move forward in our understanding of who God is but as we do so, our moorings can tend to shift under our feet and we find more incomprehensibility than anything else.

The path of discovering God is a lot like someone being born in a sunken ship that has water which leaked into the ship as it sunk.  It rests at the bottom and lays there for years untouched.  A baby is born in the sunken ship and as it grows, the child learns about the water, its properties, its temperature, how it changes temperature, its taste, etc...  Those in the ship are in control of the water and can transfer it throughout the ship when needed but can never remove it.  One day the child decides to open the hatch to go outside and discovers that they are engulfed and crushed by that same water that was so tamed and tempered inside the sunken ship.  God knows that our capacity to understand him is a process of discovering more of his incomprehensibility.  Keith Yandell says that mystery is not a good category for describing God's incomprehensibility.  Though that may be helpful we can still use mystery as a category for describing God but only loosely.

God, therefore cannot be original because his originality would require too much of him for us to handle in our finite, fallen and I would add, infantile status.
 

Kenton Sparks presents this view extremely well in his book, "God's Words in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship" with the Scriptural view of Accommodationism.

He writes, "Accommodation is God's adoption in inscripturation of the human audience's finite and fallen perspective.  Its underlying conceptual assumption is that in many cases God does not correct our mistaken human viewpoints but merely assumed them in order to communicate with us." (p.230-31).

Later he points out that the need to think this way is because there are obvious errors in the Bible, but not errors that actually challenge its authority but point to a doctrine of inscripturation which he labels - Accomodation.

Accommodationists, he says, "are as interested as anyone else in allaying impressions of divine error in Scripture, they are uncomfortable with slavishly equating the mind of God with the mind of the human author, and have no fixation whatever on rescuing the Bible's human authors from error...God has accommodated his discourse to us, not by instructing the human author to express things simply, but by adopting the simple viewpoints of that human author, whose perspectives, personality, vocabulary, and literary competence were well suited to the ancient audience of Scripture."  (p. 245)

Taylor College and Seminary in Edmonton, AB held their Faith and Culture Conference in September of 2007 where Kenton presented the lectures that formed his aforementioned book.  The MP3 files are titled, Epistemology, Biblical Criticism, Accommodation and Path of Wisdom.  These lectures give a fantastic overview of the subject matter in his book. 


Our fear is that if our God isn't original to categories that we define him with then we, as Christians or Evangelicals, aren't out in front of the "world" and they might be "original" than us.  So we project our fixed and purist notions of God onto him while he's busy incarnating himself into the mess of the world.  We end up with a God that is shaped by our insecurities rather than by his mysteries while the world moves forward.  He is not unfaithful to his promise to work through us - so he does (another form of Accommodationism) but the goal is to become more faithful to the way in which He is doing his work of redemption rather than to what makes us "feel" the most safe or comfortable.  We all have insecurities and because security is in the top 3 needs of humanity if not the top need, we will generally design our approaches to God based upon those insecurities more than He would have us do so.  Though He is patient, he will eventually remove those in order to draw us to who He really is.  

Because idolatry is really our projection onto God of that which we believe will meet our most pertinent needs, we posture a God who meets those needs and does so to allay our fears (which are sourced in our insecurities).  To worship a God like that is idolatry, but he because he's patient, he works with what we give him.  Over time, the good virus of the Gospel should constantly reform our view of who God really is and at times cause radical shifts in that process.  So the question remains?  Will I approach God today more out of my insecurities or will I come to him in his mysteries.  Both require dedication but only one requires submission.

Evangelical Scholar Believes in Evolution?

ABC News covers Bruce Waltke's resignation from Reformed Theological Seminary and Ken Ham comes to the rescue with his absolutist version of truth that seems to ignore so much of what is being discovered about the Ancient Near Eastern Cultures that surrounded Israel at the time of the Old Testament's composition. It's only a matter of time.

What Are We to Make of Adam and Eve? | The BioLogos Foundation

Peter Enns discusses the topic of the need for a historical dude named Adam from the Genesis narrative. This is exciting dialogue for people who want to understand how the genres of Scripture interact with the reality of Scripture and the issues raised by Science. Very refreshing!

What Are We to Make of Adam and Eve? | The BioLogos Foundation

What I feel like lately...

Phil Nellis put me on to this video today.  Pixelated, frustrated, castrated, mandated, cremated, dated.  A reminder that my story is meant to be lived outside as well, not observed and created indoors.  Compelling piece - not sure what to do with it.

Focusing on Jesus can miss the Message of the Bible

In a class on the Pentateuch and Historical Books of the Old Testament, our professor evoked a question regarding Jesus and how the Old Testament is taught.  In more than one opportunity Tim Keller has pointed out that whenever the Bible is taught or preached, the Gospel of Jesus Christ needs to be shared and pointed towards.  The question that our professor asked or at least pointed towards made the point that we should not teach the Bible and then point to Jesus not matter where we are at.  His statement is that we should let the Bible speak for itself and if there isn't explicit material that deals with the Gospel and/or with Christ, we don't need to put it in there.  Let the Bible speak for itself and don't push New Testament categories and themes on every Old Testament passage is the basic idea.

I first heard of this in college when it was discussed that Medieval theologians were faulted for using the allegorical method of interpretation too much.  Some saw Christ in the tent pegs of the Tent of Meeting = too far.  The Neo-Reformed/Tim Keller approach is an interpretive method of a different order.  What Keller and others like him are doing is trying to bring the Gospel into every passage of the Bible because of their Christo-centric hermeneutic.  Have they gone too far?  I think so and it would seem my professor agrees.  Karl Rahner in his book, Trinity, explains that most Christians are functionally Unitarians and that they focus attention too exclusively on the second person of the Trinity, Jesus, and ignore the Father and the Spirit all too much.  Roger Olson points this out in his book, Questions to all you Answers, and further points out the instead of saying, "Jesus is the answer," we should say, "the Trinity is the answer." Isaiah 53 is about Jesus, but it is also about Isaiah 53 and about the Father.  We bypass the beauty and profundity of Scripture when we look for our preconceived belief to overlay passages in Scripture.  If this happens too often, we bypass the ability for Scripture to speak on its own and begin to overlook and avoid the ability of the Bible to confront us with something other than what we're already looking for.  If you know what you want to get out of a passage, i.e. the Gospel, then you may be less and less open to allowing the Bible to speak to you on its own terms. 

This previous point was brought out by the professor.  To him, if we focus on getting to the Gospel and Jesus every time we preach or teach from a passage, then the richness of each passage can be circumvented and the Bible can turn into one big message about the New Testament reality about Jesus.  There are so many passages, especially in the OT that do not directly point to or deal with Jesus Christ.  If that's the case, then there is nothing wrong with teaching or preaching that passage without pointing to Christ each time. What if the messages of the Bible aren't always about Jesus?  They are indirectly of course but many messages don't point towards Jesus.

If the Bible were about one member of the Trinity, wouldn't it make more sense that the most important person to consider in the Trinity would be the Father.  These passages seem to point to that...

I Corinthians 15:26-28
²⁶The last enemy to be destroyed is death. ²⁷For he "has put everything under his feet."^[c] Now when it says that "everything" has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. ²⁸When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

Hebrews 1:1-4
In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, ²but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. ³The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. ⁴So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs. 

John 1:1;14

 ¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was with God in the beginning...¹⁴The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.




So should we focus on one member of the Trinity for every passage of Scripture - should interpretation be directed by Christo-centrism?  What if we were to look at each passage and look at it through the lens of the Trinity?  We could then discern who might be the most important figure to consider, whether one, two or all three of them when looking at a pertinent passage.  We need a Triune-centric interpretation of Scripture which will include Christo-centricism.  The Bible isn't about Jesus, it is about the Trinity and though Jesus is a central figure throughout the Bible and a member of the Trinity, the Bible isn't about Jesus.  It has to be about the Trinity and the life of the Trinity as they carry out their ongoing plan.  Are there important implications to consider because of this?  Does it matter?  Yes.  But that's a whole different post.

We cannot minimize the storyline to one member of the Trinity or give pre-eminence to one member unless that is done with Yahweh himself.  He's the one who sends Christ, is the Father, is obeyed by Christ, is given all that Christ accomplishes, is the person of the Trinity who creates through his Son, is whom we access through Christ.  He is the Goal and He has the first and final Word.  But the point is that we don't need to pick one - we look at Scripture, as much as possible, through the eyes of the Trinity not just one member of the Trinity.

The 8 Marks of a Robust Gospel | Scot McKnight | The Christian Vision Project

The 8 Marks of a Robust Gospel | Scot McKnight | The Christian Vision Project

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Peter Rollins' Insurrection Pub Tour Audio

Peter Rollins came to Chicago with Padraig and Johnny for the Insurrection Tour and left a whirlwind of questions, ponderings and hope.  If you missed it or would like to hear it again, the audio is right here.  I'd love to hear any responses to the presentation and what you heard.  Warning - there is some use of strong language and provocative prose but well worth hearing.

Vanilla flavored Gospel and SandCastles

Vanilla is a complicated and wondrous spice. The process to cultivate this flavor is extremely complex and requires excellent precision and timing. The processes that are used to cultivate the vanilla properly are largely un-related to any other cultivation process. The uniqueness of Vanilla cultivation sets it apart from the rest of the spices and plants. On a recent visit to a spice plantation in India, the process was explained, while we stared down at this simple looking plant. Each procedure to procure the spice was almost totally unrelated to the process that preceded it until finally the vanilla plant produced its yield. Interestingly, the process seemed to involve steps that would have required thousands and thousands of experiments to discover. I have no idea how that was done, nonetheless all the steps are necessary.

In reflection upon this, I was brought to the eras of the Bible and how we transitioned from era to the next. From our perspective, the process of God's revelation in the Old Testament seems to have little to do with the culture or our time today. For example, when was the last time, an angel visited you to inform you that your neighboring city was going to be destroyed or when was the last time a prophet in your midst was told to lay on his side for months on end to communicate a message from God. Take the sacrificial system for instance. When was the last time that you sacrificed a goat as an offering to the Lord or brought a grain offering in and had it offered by a priest to God to show your love and devotion to God.

Theologians talk about continuity and discontinuity, but if we are honest, there is little continuity in the structure and rituals of the Old Testament with our faith expressions today. Yet, there is overarching narrative that ties our chapter to theirs, but it seems so unrelated in so many ways.

Vanilla theology is theology that recognizes that what we begin with is going to go through so many different phases, that require the same vigilance and timing and radical transitioning that is required for this process to actually yield the final goal. The movement from era to era, though so different culturally, is telling the same story and projecting the same narrative. What I think isn't so sure, is the claim of continuity. C'mon - the process of salvation and revelation is bizarre and at points seemingly unrelated to what came before.

There is continuity - that is obvious but the foundation for this post is to provoke us to also realize how much discontinuity is required between eras in order for the next era to come to fruition. The ability for the core values of our faith to transition from era to era, generation to generation or culture to culture may require less continuity (though some is necessary) than we think and a lot more discontinuity.

The success of a core value is not the maintenance of the edifices that are built around it, but the ability of those who build those edifices to transition the essentials of the core values from edifice to edifice without without transitioning the actual edifices.

In short, we are all building sand castles - but it is not the castle that matters, it is what we do, gain and learn each time we build a sand castle - anticipating that what we have learned will be transferred to tomorrow's day on the beach after the evening's tide has washed away our castle.

To yield the vanilla that we want from the plant that we begin with, we need to be okay with transitioning to completely different yielding methods. These methods maintain the core essence of vanilla while at the same time shedding the unnecessary elements that keep us from reaching the goal. What is the goal? - pure vanilla flavor, a flavor and fragrance that can only be released at its full potential once the plant has transitioned through these increasingly unrelated but absolutely necessary steps of procurement.

Our Gospel is growing and transitioning in much the same way and it is doing so through the ongoing study and evolution of Scriptural interpretation, through the maturing transitions of the Church - Christ's body and bride, and through God's common grace revelation and work in history.

So the need then is to be a lot more comfortable with discontinuity and less comfortable with continuity. Human nature does the opposite, but if we want the true essence of the Gospel, both as it is as well as what it is continually unveiling about itself over time, we will need to embrace discontinuity more than we lean on continuity. This does not eject what is supported in the Gospel by continuity, but it does communicate to us that our default setting - our conventional thinking towards how this works - may not be as valuable as we "conventionally" and naturally think it to be.  To produce the purest and most potent yield may require passionately avant-garde methods of transition, methods that not only challenge status quo but transform it into a new status quo, that also anticipates the need for future methods of transition.  What we need are more builders, not protectors, of our sand castles.