Reformation Day, CDXC

For the 490th Reformation Day, I have written OFB's annual Reformation Day piece, this year reflecting on how Reformation Day applies to everyone in the Church — not just Protestants — and not in the divisive way some people may think. If you missed it last year, you may also want to check out Ed Hurst's excellent piece on the same subject.

Jesus Camp

I saw the film Jesus Camp yesterday at an open discussion held at my alma mater, Lindenwood. The film is… disturbing. It follows a particular “Evangelical” children's camp (which is heavily Pentecostal and, I would assert, more properly labeled Fundamentalist), following the director and several kids during the time before, during and after the camp. The camp presents many truths, but at the same time was truly disturbing. What tactics are proper for a camp to use to get children to “accept” the Gospel? For that matter, do they really accept a personal relationship with Christ if they are scared into it, or do they merely assent to propositions?

The video also raised some questions about the fundamental debate between the camp and its so-called “enemies,” the “liberal relativists.” I wrote the following in an e-mail discussing the film; the comments are somewhat stream-of-consciousness in form, but hopefully they are intelligible:

I've been mulling over “Jesus Camp” some more. I'm not sure if anything I came up with is worthwhile, and they aren't really unique, but for what its worth…

It was really very interesting, if a bit nauseating. Perhaps it is because I've been busy deconstructing my theology since Dr. Schnellmann's Criticism got me thinking about deconstruction, or perhaps my “Covenant Theology” class is emphasizing a “post-modern critique” aware “narrative theology,” or maybe all that is apropos to nothing, but I was thinking: isn't the whole debate essentially yet another airing of two ugly heads of the Enlightenment Project's (dying) beast? Maybe it is time I try to make a reference to Foucault. In fact, perhaps this is where Prof. Stevens was heading with his Foucault reference…

After all, the fundamentalist movement, and many of the “enemies” that Fischer worries about […] are products of the Enlightenment/modernist perspective.

While the homeschool mom, for instance, was busy attacking evolution, she was doing so with the assumption that the Bible speaks in essentially scientific propositions. That reminds me of Dr. Meyers's discussion on category errors with Genesis, and the “walk to work or eat your lunch” example. The “offensiveness” of evolution exists largely among Christians who buy into such a reductionistic, modernist worldview that the only thing that matters is the physical creation and hence see a creation viewpoint and evolution as necessarily opposed. For that matter, the pressure Fischer felt that she must use whatever rhetoric necessary to gain converts would seem to be taking a very naturalistic view of what is required for true conversion (what happened to God in this picture?).

The whole lack of grace among the Christians of the video would seem
to come from the fact that they are primarily reading the Bible as propositions of law rather than a story of grace (to sound all deconstructionist again, they seemed to lack a sense of a redemptive
meta-narrative). Despite the “manifestations of the Spirit” there was little real sense of a relational understanding of Christianity.

Perhaps the (seemingly ever increasing) antagonism between modernist factions will lead to their eventual collapse? Maybe I am overly optimistic there. Of course, then that would mean one thing (logically) in theology: a second wave of Neo-Orthodoxy! I can only imagine all the new books on St. Karl of Basel that would be written…

Anyone here see this film? What did you think?

A Musing on Deconstruction

I was at the bookstore the other day, and I found myself flipping through several books by Jacques Derrida, trying to figure out if I felt up to the task of reading more of that most interesting and difficult of fellows just now. Though I am not entirely comfortable with every place Deconstructionism will go, the basics of it seem to fit the way things really work. I've spoken mostly of Deconstructionism in the sense of the hermeneutical spiral, but let's consider it somehow other than that.

Consider faith. We accept Christ. We try to make Him the center of our lives, and to that end Christians start and continue churches to be used by Him. The churches are meant to be centered around Christ with the aim to spread the Good News. But, our attempt is futile. In as much as we attempt to pursue “His goals” on our terms, we find that our churches are not so much accomplishing the spread of the Good News, but rather maintaining their self-perpetuating existence as organizations and finding ways to amuse our members with ever increasingly spectacular displays.

It isn't malicious intent, but rather the complete inability of humans to be centered. We are constantly slipping away from that which we most aim to do, and, in fact, our attempts in and of themselves are as effective as is the effort of pulling one's fingers out of a Chinese finger trap. It simply does not work.

The key of course, and the place where the Christian parts way with the agnostic Deconstructionist thinker is that something I hinted at above. The problem appears inasmuch as we depend on our terms. God certainly is powerful enough to do what needs to be done, but if He is going to use us, we need to quit thinking we can escape the gravitational force exerted by the phenomena we call Deconstruction and allow God to deconstruct our frameworks for us.

Wretched Man that I Am

I always find myself drawn back to the following passage. Paul has razor sharp clarity and insight that is amazing throughout his letters, and leaves little wonder why his letters were unquestionably canonical. Though I am hardly preacher material, I cannot help by lapsing into something like a preaching mode when talking about the Pauline Epistles. Nevertheless, this passage offers such a sense that I know exactly what Paul is talking about that it really stands out; I am thankful for it… what a marvelous reminder of the grace of our Lord.

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

-Romans 7:21-25 (NIV)

Authenticating our Faith

Last week, Brad posted a link to an interesting discussion that started over a critique of believers often circular reasoning in arguing for the faith. As so many unconvinced people will say, “please don't quote Scripture to prove Christianity to me.”

It is true that the Scriptures have excellent historical witnesses, and textually speaking we can vouch for what the Evangelists wrote with more certainty than we can, for example, say what William Shakespeare wrote. With that in mind, along with other ancient authorities, we can argue for the existence of a man named Jesus and a kingdom named Israel. What we can never do is prove that Jesus is God incarnate or that Israel was God's chosen people using that methodology.

As I have said before, Calvin and Barth both understood this quite well, and emphasized grounding Scriptural authority in God's revelation to us through the Holy Spirit. Christianity is ultimately a relational faith — it springs from God's relationship with us — and so we ought to place our foundation squarely there.

While rational grounding is good and necessary, and relational grounding cannot prove an iota to someone who has never felt the presence of God, the latter is the only grounding that can provide a reason to believe the extent of Christianity. Perhaps we are embarrassed of this grounding and that is why we constantly seek to prove Scripture (and Christianity in general) with Scripture, but let's get over the embarrassment and admit it: our faith comes from God reaching out to us. Any other basis simply won't work.

If we admitted that, would we have any annoyed atheists tired of circular reasoning? Likely not — perhaps they could even understand why we believe what we believe a bit better.

Greek

Greek is a paradox. On the one hand, now with some background in it from years ago, a whole year of undergraduate Greek and the better part of a year of graduate level Greek, one would think I'd finally be comfortable with the language. Up until recently, I didn't think it would ever happen; nevertheless, even without that, there is something amazing about reading a so-called “dead language” and bringing it back to life, especially when one realizes the words one is reading are the words God inspired. If, as Christians believe, the Bible is God's written account of His entering into this world, how amazing it is to see a grammatical construction — even if it is extremely frustrating — and think, “wow, that was written by the author of John, it is not an attempt to reconstruct what was written by the author of John in English. This is the real thing.” A frustrating periphrastic construction can suddenly seem almost exciting (admittedly, it is not always so).

In the midst of that, as of this weekend, I finished translating the book of 1 John for class. I've read through all of 2 John and 3 John in Greek as part of an assigned 10 minute devotional reading each day, and I've read some interesting key parts of the Gospel of John for the same assignment (you can read anything Johannian you feel like, other than Revelation). Doing that much translation — and I've tried to translate all of 1 John twice in the last month, once on the official class scratch paper, and once on the final assignment pages — along with the timed, non-translated reading, I realize I am not yet thinking Greek, but I am beginning to. I can anticipate common phrases used in these books. When I do not recognize a word, often I can figure out enough from the rest of the words to know what it means with some degree of certainty — it is starting to feel more like reading unmodernized Chaucer than reading untranslated Beowulf.

That's pretty neat; I'm excited. I'd still like to expand into Classical Greek, but one step at a time…

Three Positions: Exclusivism, Inclusivism, Pluralism

I'm presently trying to get a paper published on this subject (or, more particularly, my interactions with John Hick's variant of Pluralism), and I'll be presenting that paper for the second time next week — this time to an adult Sunday School class at church. But, that aside, I think this is a helpful point to consider not only later in soteriology, but also while we remain in the prolegomena of dogmatics. Why here and why now? Well, we need to define how this theological system interacts with other ones. But, first a little observation from C.S. Lewis on this own experience as he edged toward his youthful atheism:

“The accepted position seemed to be that religions were normally a mere farrago of nonsense, though our own, by a fortunate exception, was exactly true. The other religions were not even explained, in the earlier Christian fashion, as the work of devils. That I might, conceivably, have been brought to believe.” (Surprised by Joy, 59-60)

Common within exclusivist camps' viewpoint is a polar view on the issue of the possible positions. We have exclusivists and the inclusivists. The correct view, according to this camp, is exclusivism, of course, which rejects all other religions as false while affirming one's own, as Lewis talks about in the quote. The inclusivist, again, according to this camp's schema of the world, accepts all religions as equally true. This model is far too simplistic, whether one is exclusivist or no. The model I find much more helpful, which I was first introduced to via Hick, is the three position view. What was previously called inclusivism is relabeled pluralism, and inclusivism becomes a compromise in between. E.g., “Christianity is the most direct revelation of God, but there is some truth to other religions.” I like the three model view, but prefer to place those terms as pinpoints on a wide spectrum, rather than suggesting that the types are three clear cut categories.

Let's stay out of the whole issue of salvation until this subject comes up again later and deal with this merely as an issue of epistemology. Pluralism must reject the full and direct knowledge of God because the Christian revelation is only one truth among equals. These truths do not say the same thing — contrast Christianity with the atheistic Theravada Buddhism if you need proof of that. Ultimately, the fullest form of pluralism necessarily becomes an exclusivism by making a truth claim that suggests what the core is that everyone else is pointing to. This is my point of attack against Hick's religious pluralism. (I can go into that more, if anyone is interested.)

Somewhere a bit off from this extreme we encounter something of Schleiermacher's system. Essentially here we have a unilineal evolution of religion in which Christianity is not really all that different from all the other religions, but somehow is a bit more highly evolved. Revelation is still diminished substantially, but at least Schleiermacher makes an attempt to suggest that there is some uniqueness to his Christianity without pretending to be perfectly relative as Hick does (which is not to say I think Hick is insincere).

On the far other end is the exclusivists already mentioned, but I'd suggest there are few real exclusivists in daily practice. Most who would claim the title still get uncomfortable suggesting that the “unreached people groups” that missions agencies will talk about are unequivocally damned for our lack of having reached them. I think most will appeal to natural revelation and fiddle with vague notions to try to soften this up, and eventually profess uncertainty. The point not being to decide whether that person is right or wrong, but to suggest that few actually seem to consistently and fully operate with in the exclusivist's realm. The realm problem is elucidated by Lewis's remark, I'd suggest. It seems unbelievable when we simply state that Christianity is a priori completely true and everything is, by the same basis, entirely false.

Hence we proceed to the middle: the inclusivist position. This is the position I will generally advocate. For those wondering, I am on the exclusivist side of inclusivism (remember, I'm thinking in a spectrum), but I do not think that is terribly important. The big point is that in this grouping we are going to admit that there is natural revelation and there is some truth — even if it is “through a glass darkly” — in things outside of Christianity. In following this line, we adopt something of Thomas's synthesis. Aristotle, Homer and the rest of the classical writers, but certainly not limited to classical writers, may witness to the truth without being inside God's self-Revelation through His Word. They are not really outside of His Word, but rather “prefigure” that revelation, which in turn “fulfills” them (to borrow Lewis's terms from an unquoted part of that paragraph).

So, how do we fit this into the Barthian context that I have been working with? Good question. My contention would be that we should not say “Nein” entirely to natural theology; I think “Paul and the Areopagus” in Acts, and the other natural law proof texts, are on to something. Rather, we must affirm that the only complete — or as complete as we need and want it — and pure knowledge of God is that which comes directly through Christ. That does not mean we must say that natural law does not exist. Natural law, much like the Bible, is not the Revelation itself, but rather a witness to the single, complete revelation of God in Christ. Perhaps more useful is to say that natural law is potentially dangerous, for the temptation is to use it, interpreted through “reason,” as the key to God's special revelation rather than vise versa. Jesus must be the starting point and the ending point.

I would argue that while I may end up conflicting with Church Dogmatics a bit as I proceed on this issue, that by and large, Barth acts like an inclusivist. He is not a pluralist, for he sets Christ above all else, but he also does not seem to act like an exclusivist. If anything, he eludes classification, which is something perhaps with trying to do. These waters are murky and it is not good to make them too clear while we dabble in the purely theoretical form of dogmatics.

All that said, inclusivism bears fruit for our pursuit. While it is not a license to, say, tie Christianity down to Aristotle, it is a grant of permission to observe where Scripture can be illuminated by that wise man's understanding. Likewise with Plato and others. And, speaking of which, Plato's cave is as useful as any illustration of the inclusivist view: God's revealing of Himself is the sun, but that does not mean the shadows on the walls of the cave are entirely irrelevant.

Summing Up the Evangelical Defense of Barth

So, I have spent a number of posts considering the issue of Barth and Scriptural inerrancy. I should be careful not to suggest that I think this is the key point to the prolegomena of the theology I have been “constructing” (in the loosest sense) here on my blog. Rather, I have gone through this several times in an attempt to show that Barth's rejection of Scriptural inerrancy need not be a stumbling block to proceeding with Neo-Orthodoxy inside Evangelicalism. Scripture isn't the point, but the means to the point. Christ is the point. My goal is not to construct an Evangelical theology, but rather to construct a theology that can be shown to be compatible with Evangelicalism.

The other contentions that I considered earlier are not nearly as much of a problem to this end, but bear a final consideration. If we adopt a Neo-Orthodox system, one is naturally going to ask if that means rejecting natural theology. Much as with the case of Scripture, I'm going to suggest that the correct answer is not yes or no but indifference. Natural theology can only be interpreted usefully within the interpretive framework of special revelation. While Paul seems to advocate the existence of natural law in Romans chapter 1, it is not a saving law, but rather a condemning law. Our concern is with the Gospel, and not the law. Natural law exists, but there is no point of contact because no one can make the leap of faith without the working of the Holy Spirit. Instead, what the natural law does provide is at least a sense of intelligibility. The Christian faith can be analyzed outside of belief, but it cannot be entered into through reason alone.

The second point, Universalism, I think is surprisingly easy for modern Evangelicals to deal with. I will again insist that Barth is no universalist, but the fact that he refuses to draw a firm line of the saved and the damned is something even fairly hard lined Evangelicals will do today. Few people are comfortable with suggesting the eternal damnation of those who have not and will not ever be given the chance to hear the Gospel, and while our comfort is not the guiding principle of interpretation, it is helpful to note that many Evangelicals will do precisely what Barth does — push the line between election to grace and election to condemnation into the realm of mystery — and so we ought not judge Barth for this. I think Barth is wise and draws out a principle of how we should do something from this (hi Ed!): in one of the best put statements in 2.2 (and there are a lot of great remarks in there), he says that church is to act on the Good News we do know and not on the bad that we do not know. Our mission is simple: to make disciples, so we ought to worry about that and leave the rest to God.

With these points aside the question is where does one go next? Barth starts his dogmatic theology with the Trinity; Aquinas starts his system with the existence and nature of God; Calvin starts with God as Creator. I am tempted by that alluring muse of Philosophy to follow Aquinas. In fact, I think it is perhaps helpful while still in the mode of prolegomena to consider the arguments for God, particularly since the framework I am trying to build hinges on paradox, and the arguments for God are going to help build the case of paradox. What do you think?

Are We Asking the Wrong Questions?

My friend Ed raised some good points last week (while I was immersed in finals) in a response to my last post on Barth.

Ed notes that in his opinion, Barth is asking the wrong question when he delves into the inerrancy of the Bible, and likewise, I am really going no where useful in attempting to create a deconstructionist framework around the same basic principles as Barth. So, are we asking the wrong question?

Perhaps, but I think it is an important wrong question at least. I was reading some assigned sections of Paul Tillich's Systematic Theology the other day (don't worry Ed, I'm not going to defend Tillich), and he was busy making the distinction between kerygmatic and apologetic theology. Barth, he correctly notes, is in the kerygmatic camp: Barth's intention (which I think he is fairly good at sticking to) is to let the Bible ask the questions and provide the answers. Tillich on the other hand wants to pose modern questions to the Bible, the apologetic approach. I think in as much as Barth is sticking to questions from the Bible, Ed wouldn't complain about Barth's approach.

But, Barth does worry about inerrancy and a bunch of other things, and I would say that is rightly so. My posts have essentially formed the prolegomena of my “theology,” and the sections of Barth we are dealing with are likewise from his prolegomena. When Barth rejects the inerrancy of the Bible and shifts the focus to the self-Revelation of Christ which is witnessed to in the Bible, he is setting the base assumption from which he will proceed. I would argue that the question is not perhaps the most relevant — we spend way too much time arguing about inerrancy — but at the same time, Barth does his readers a favor by explaining his methodology up front. He really must deal with the question, because people want to deal with that question.

It all comes down to admitting we all use a methodology. We cannot escape operating within frameworks. No matter how much we try to get to the core of the text (not only with the Bible, but with any text), we are still stuck interpreting it from within layers of frameworks — frameworks of experience, frameworks of knowledge of other texts, frameworks of personality and so on. We can skip over the question of interpretation, because it is primarily abstract and has little to do with doing, but I would assert that does not bring us closer to the meaning of the Bible, because we are still going to be reading it within the frameworks that we are stuck in. Admitting that does not suddenly fix the problem, but it brings us closer to the source of the problem. Ed writes,

If the audience is culturally, geographically and historically far away from Jesus' fresh footprints in the sand, then it's yours to also bring them to that understanding, place and time. As some put it, we are to incarnate the Word, bring it/Him to life. Absolutes were never possible from the moment of the Fall, so don't fret. God expects obedience. Surely that assumes what He expects of you He will put within your reach? What other purpose is there for calling you into His Kingdom? Theology from a Spiritual viewpoint embraces your best understanding of what Old and New Testaments testified.

I think he is right that we need to try to read the Bible from the perspective of its authors, but I would argue that in doing so, we are trying to establish a particular critical framework, we are not abolishing the work of the prolegomena altogether. The traditional views of Higher Criticism, from which Barth is working, actually argues that we should ground the text historically.

Ed's contention is that we must quit just focusing on using our reasoning abilities and actually live the Gospel. I agree. However assuming we want to understand what we are living, I think a good first step is to analyze our mode of interpreting what it is we are to live. We will live differently if we proceed under Schleiermacher's assumptions than if we proceed under Barth's. But not only that, but consider if we read the Bible under Pentecostal assumptions? Clearly living the Gospel takes on a very different light in that context. Barth's observation that we must focus on the living Word of God (Christ) as revelation is critical to that, because Christ's self-revelation to us gives us the confidence to then live what we believe.

To some extent, it is absurd to live out any text, because we cannot ever completely understand the text. Here we have our paradoxical absurdity for our inner Kierkegaardians to delight in. But the Christian is not living a text, but living in the eternal revelation of God in Christ.

Barth, Scripture and Inerrancy

In April of 2006, a post of mine brought about a thoughtful critique of Barthianism by Eduardo. He gave a three point critique of Barth's theology focusing on its antagonism of natural theology, unique perspective on revelation and its implicit universalism. I have already provided a response concerning natural theology and universalism, but I do not believe I ever responded in full concerning Barth's view of revelation. Barth's view of revelation works into the theological framework I've been tinkering with here and here, so now seems like a great time to deal with this.

Let's set everything on the table from the start. Barth rejects the inerrancy of Scripture. That's the basic matter of contention, perhaps an even worse stumbling block to Barthian theology in Evangelical churches than the accusations of universalism (and, unlike the other accusation, I cannot deny that Barth indeed does hold the position he is accused of here). So my task today is not to explain why I think those who accuse Barth of rejecting inerrancy are wrong, but to show, if possible, that Barth's view is really inconsequential in itself and to the overall usefulness of Barthian/Neo-Orthodox theology. Before you prepare to burn me at the stake, bear with me and I'll explain why; don't put away the torches either — you still may want to burn me in a little while.

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