Monthly Archives: April 2010

Gnosticism Redivivus

Sometimes I question if the composers of our classical Creeds would recognize any practical difference between contemporary Evangelicalism and the ancient Gnostic apostates.

Gnostic heresies abandoning the accepted doctrine of the incarnation assailed the ancient church with their abjuration of the goodness of the material creation, approving, alternatively, an abstracted mysticism accentuating the mind and the acquisition of knowledge as the supreme essence of human existence.

Though resolutely rejected by the early councils, Gnosticism has resurrected. No longer relegated to the ivory towers of Greek philosophy; it resides in the pews, conferences, and educational institutions of American Protestantism. Forgetting humans are necessarily physical creatures; we opt instead for an anthropology almost solely defined by the human intellect.

Gnosticism’s revival remains so injurious, not merely because it thinks wrongly about God, but because it fails to form the Christian community in a way that orients us toward the Kingdom of God which is come to earth and is embodied in the practices, habits, and everyday lives of the people of God who actually have bodies.

As a seminary community, an education community, we too easily forget that the kingdom of God is not chiefly about changing the way people think, but about changing the way they acts, as well. The Wesleyan model of discipleship is grounded first in practice, then in knowledge. Not the other way around.

So when we attend chapel, church, or class, we must remember that we are not only there to learn, but to be formed and shaped for the Kingdom through the holistic, embodied, practices which accentuate the goodness of the whole person as reflections of the beauty of God’s creation. After all, “what if education isn’t first and foremost about what we know, but about what we love? (Smith, 18)” If this is the case, we can no longer hold a reductionist paradigm which views the Christian faith primarily as a “set of ideas, principles, claims, and propositions that are known and believed.” (Smith, 32) Rather, we need to explore Christian education and worship as that which forges our desires and loves through physical actions emphasizing the goodness of our embodiment.

Don’t Get Out of God’s Way!

I know it seems especially pious when people pray something like “God, just put me aside and do your will.”

I know this seems pious because I hear it all the time.

But what if it’s wrong? What if ignores the profound, yet simple, fact that God created you the way you are precisely because He doesn’t want to cast you aside, but wants to use the gifts, experience, and talents that you, as an individual, bring to the table?

Think about it this way – God didn’t pen the Bible (Shocking, I know!). No, God used Paul, Peter, John and others to pen the Bible. He did not cast them aside – He used them, with all their personality defects, oddities, problems, greatness, experiences and talents.

And He doesn’t want to cast you aside either. He wants to use you; He wants to employ all your gifts and experiences for the furtherance of His kingdom of love.

Why?

Because He made you the way you are and He glories in seeing you at work, loves watching His creation create and serve in your own unique way, and delights in your participation with Him in the redemption of creation!

So let’s stop these “God, cast me aside and do your will” prayers. And let’s start praying, “Lord, use my God-given talents and my God-created personality and experiences to further your love in the world. And if there are any parts of my personality which are still broken and out of submission to You, do not cast it aside, but aim it in the right direction, so that the world might see that you can use someone as broken as me to spread Your love.”

Does God Hold Grudges Against Me?

Sometimes when my wife offers words of encouragement about how smart I am, how sexy she thinks I am, or how much she enjoyed a sermon I preached, I have a tendency to take it with a grain of salt, forgetting about it a few minutes after she voices it or just shrugging it off almost immediately. After all, she ‘has’ to say these things, doesn’t she?

But when my wife is in a bad mood and doesn’t respond to me like I think she should, or when she’s had a rough day and she gets snippy instead of encouraging, my anger and frustration will stay with me much longer and in a much more intense form, than the good feelings brought on by her words of encouragement.

During these times of anger, I will ignore that she has given her very life to me – she has promised to support me, love me, encourage me, and that she has performed these functions in our marriage exceptionally. I ignore her character and focus on her momentary lapse, taking it to the extreme, as if that’s really who she is.

We human beings, with our proclivity toward sin and brokenness, are much more impassioned by the negative things people say to us (we remember them much longer!) than the positive. We are much more frustrated by the bad things people do than by their character of generosity, humility, and love.
I was wondering last night if this doesn’t shape our view of God. That is, we assume God is the same way – he takes the little sins we commit and acts as if THAT is who we really are. And he takes the good things we do, the righteous things we do, and all but forgets about them a few minutes later.

But what if God is the exact opposite of us? What if, as the Scriptures say, our sins are removed as far as the East is from the West as soon as we commit them! What if, instead of getting all frustrated with the little things we do that our against our character, He is instead lavishly celebrating every act of kindness, ever step toward self-giving love no matter how small? What if God isn’t count up our sins and holding them as a grudge against us for the Judgment Day? What if, instead, He delights so much in us that He’s almost a love-blinded father who rejoices over ever little step is daughter takes?

What if God doesn’t hold grudges against His children, but instead, takes the little acts of goodness and views them in light of eternity? And what if this, through the lens of the cross and resurrection, is exactly how He sees us all the time? Wouldn’t that change the way your relate to Him? Wouldn’t that help you see that He delights in you? Wouldn’t that shift the way you respond to people when they offer encouraging words? And even more the case, wouldn’t that challenge the way you and I respond to people when they are rude, snotty, or sarcastic to us?

The Resurrection of the Body and Embodied Worship

Without a bodily resurrection, Christ’s cross merely brings about another pointless death of a Galilean slave.

Without a bodily resurrection, Christ’s cross does not defeat death, does not trounce the Devil, and does not secure our salvation and unite us to the Triune God.

In a recent conversation someone attempted to convince me that the bodily resurrection didn’t matter; all that matters is the spiritual idea of resurrection as something that inspires us to morality. In response I argued, along with Paul in I Corinthians 15, if Christ’s resurrection didn’t happen in real, physical space and time, then it means nothing, we believe in vain.

But in the course of this conversation I realized something significant – the Evangelical world, for all it’s fighting against this sort of liberalism, is functionally no different. If one were to look at our worship services, it is the cross, not the resurrection, that is emphasized; our worship is abstract and spiritual in emphasis, not embodied and concrete.

But here’s the thing – if Christ really rose from the dead, then more than merely spirituality or morality get impacted, there are implications for the physical world, as well. The physical world is given value precisely because Christ rose, not in a spiritual sense, but in a physical sense.

This blog series will explore the multiple ways in which Christ’s physical resurrection impacts the physicality of our worship. We do not worship a distant deity abstracted from our everyday, physical lives. We worship a God who took on flesh and resurrected in the flesh, thus giving value to the material world as material.

The implications of this “material” theology are four-fold and will be explored throughout the rest of the semester. James K. Smith, in his book Desiring the Kingdom lays them out like this:

  • Christian worship understands human persons as embodied rather than mere thinking things.
  • Christian worship prioritizes practices rather than ideas as the site of challenge and resistance.
  • Christian worship looks at cultural practices and institutions through the lens of worship or liturgy.
  • Christian worship retains a robust sense of antithesis without being simply “anti-cultural.”

I hope you will not only join us through this blog series, but that you will see the significance of the physical world, the senses, the creation, and your body in worship.

Graduate’s Chapel Sermon Exerpt – Jeremiah 1:3

I’ve been working feverishly on my Graduate’s Chapel sermon that I will be delivering on May 12th. Here’s an excerpt from what I worked on today.

Jeremiah 1:3 The word of the Lord…”came also in the days of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of King Zedekiah son of Josiah of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month.”

“This listing of Kings is not merely for chronological value. It’s not trying to merely tell us something about Jeremiah’s historical setting for the sake of our historical knowledge. Here, the kings are listed to demonstrate that Jeremiah’s prophecies were not abstracted, disconnected spiritual truths. No, they were specific – they spoke to kings and rulers who thought they ruled by their own might, by their own brilliance, by their own power, indeed, by God’s very blessing.

Jeremiah speaks to them and against them, telling them that history will not fully nor finally be defined by the ploys of the powerful over the weak, in the end history will not be told by the powerful while ignoring the voice of the marginal, and history will not be defined by the chronology of kings and their wars, but by martyrs, saints, and prophets who dare to speak the word of the One, true King of history – a crucified and risen Jesus!”

The Underappreciated: My Wife

The Underappreciated: My Wife

I’ve been wanting to write a blog series on people in my life (in my family, around campus, at church, etc.) that I think are underappreciated. I want them to know that I notice their little acts of service, their hearts of service.

There is no one more appropriate for me to begin this series with than my wife.

She is quite simply the most amazing person I’ve ever met. And probably the most amazing person YOU’VE ever met. The thing is, you don’t realize it! Her humble, gentle spirit does not seek its own glory.
You won’t find her out there blabbing about herself all the time like me.

She’s simply an even-keeled, down to earth gal who you might not even notice if she wasn’t perpetually sitting right next to the obnoxiously loud guy who’s trying to pick a theological fight with everyone.

She’s an incredible mom. She works all day as the manager of the Asbury Seminary bookstore, then comes home and gives everything she has left to Phoebe (and me).

She’s a clear thinker and writer. She’d never tell you that she has an MA in Journalism from one of the most prestigious Journalism schools in America (but I’ll tell you!), nor that she graduated with honors in the program! And even though she’s done all this, her heart still serves my dreams by putting me through 4 years of seminary.

She’s the only person I know who can balance me. She has the perfect listening ear, which levels out my constant jabbering. Her heart breaks with compassion for hurting people, while mine is often filled with rage. She has a lot of common sense, whereas I am often an idiot about all things common sense.

I think she’s way underappreciated. And I think you should know that.

I’m Learning to Walk. Someday I’ll Run.

Learning to Walk

Phoebe’s face is now flawed with three distinct bruises. The first is from falling down about five stairs, all tumbling like Charlie Brown after getting hit by a baseball. The second is from tripping over the carpet and face-planting on the hard wood floor. And the third is from losing her balance, collapsing straight down onto her butt, going limp on the way down, and face-planting (head between her legs!) onto the concrete sidewalk.

Many tears ensued after each fall, and most of them weren’t even Phoebe’s.

But she’s learning to walk. And walking takes practice. Walking perfectly is not a skill Cassie and I, as reasonable parents, can expect from her right now. And if we did expect it, and got frustrated when she fell or was too slow, it would be our problem and not hers.

This is the case with God our Father, as well. In our efforts to follow His Son – to walk after Him – He knows what should be expected of us; He knows what stairs are too steep; and He knows that children who can barely crawl are still a long way from running a marathon. And not only does He know these things, He’s not upset by them!

To the contrary, He smiles with joy with every feeble attempt we make, and probably sheds more tears than we do when those attempts end in discolored faces, bleeding knees, or deep scars.

Even as a little baby, Phoebe never really liked to sit still. She always had to be on the move and would express great frustration at the physical incapability’s which hindered her free movement.

In the same way, I, too, forget, in all my frustrating inabilities and failures, that God is not standing at the finish line checking His stopwatch, eyeing it in irritation, waiting for me to appear on the horizon.

No, rather, God is standing there with me in the midst of the race. When I fall, like a good Father, He picks me up and holds me as I mourn another failure. His heart laments with every bruise I acquire as I try to climb stairs or just walk on the sidewalk. But this isn’t just amazing grace, this is simply good Parenting.

Maybe it’s a bit overdone 20 years later, but I still think this is one of the most powerful images of this reality:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9wV8AUe6_A&feature=related

(And who better to narrate than Morgan Freeman? :) )

QoD: Can White Evangelicals Handle the Truth about Race?

“The Evangelical community…is even more prone (than the rest of society) to divisions based on race…More than 90% of American congregations are made up of at least 90% of people of the same race…Factors contributing to this partitioning along racial lines…are varied and many….Blacks and whites view the sources of racial tension very differently, with whites tending to look at the problems individualistically and blacks tending to see structural issues as the primary source. In…interviews…whites were particularly irritated when suggestions were made that anything other than individual responsibility was to blame for the plight of poor blacks. In fact, whites seemed more irritated by the thought that inequities between whites and blacks might be due to structural issues than they were by the inequities themselves…Further, white evangelicals denied that they had any connection to the sins of injustice committed by whites against blacks during the history of the country.” (Elizabeth Conde-Frazier, S. Steve Kang, and Gary A. Parrett, A Many Colored Kingdom. Baker Academic, 2004, 9.)