I know, it's been a week and a half since my last post, and you are all on pins and needles waiting for the next installment. **GRIN**
After getting back from Canada, I was slammed at work. Then, the following weekend, I took my wife and kids camping up off the North Cascades Highway...gorgeous. Then, I was on a business trip to California. And today, we're leaving on a week of vacation. This is my first "real" vacation since about January.
So, I've got a stack of books that I'm planning on reading while I'm gone. Expect some lengthy posts when I get back.
STOP E-MAILING ME ABOUT WHAT I'M WRITING AND POST COMMENTS!!!! YOU ARE SOME OF THE SMARTEST MOST INSIGHTFUL PEOPLE I'VE EVER KNOWN!!! JOIN THE CONVERSATION!!!!
Some of you have asked me where I get my ideas for what I will read, or where I find links to blogs, interesting sites, etc. Well, on the plane to California on Tuesday morning, I finished Shane Claiborne's "The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical". Just in the footnotes alone were nearly a hundred websites that intrigue me, and he quoted from a broad variety of books including the works of Soren Kierkegaard (Swedish Philosopher), Dorothy Day, and Martin Luther King Jr's speeches/sermons. I haven't read Kierkegaard in YEARS, but I have a hankering to dig out a copy. I'm also interested in reading more about Mother Theresa, as Shane actually travelled to Calcutta to find out first hand what she was experiencing, and got to spend time with her. I have a Word doc on my work laptop containing three pages worth of notes, book lists, and websites to keep me busy.
My wife and I are certified Marriage Enrichment leaders through a national organization. We are called into this ministry, but have been struggling to make it grow. (Like any ministry, I guess. Seems they're all a struggle.) Anyway, recently we generated a lead that could develop into a full blown opportunity with a very large church in our area. Please pray for us that we would follow God's lead on this. It's exciting...and a little scary.
Have a GREAT AND GLORIOUS week!!! I'll post some pictures when I get back.
I also expect that I will write at least one or two full blog postings during the week....but I can't post them until I get back. Ah, the wonders of not having an internet connection.
Thanx,
Brad
Friday, August 31, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
How much do you really know?
Context is what it's all about.
Over the last month or so, the amount of cultural history I don't know has overwhelmed me. Oh, I know LOTS of factual history...what battles took place when, who was President of the U.S.A. in what year, I even know how to look up things on the Internet. After all, you can trust EVERYTHING on the Internet, right?
My wife and I subscribe to Christian History magazine. It has really opened my eyes to some things that I just couldn't really get anywhere else. It's a very broad overview of a lot of topics, and constantly gives me MORE TO READ. Yeah, that's what I need to do...read more. Christian History does a great job of providing multiple sides to a biography. (trying to be journalistically fair) Jan Hus, Thomas Merton, Thomas A'Kempis, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, are just a few of the names of people profiled in the last few years. Lots of times, we will see something we want to explore further, often archaeology based. (i.e. Dead Sea Scrolls, etc.)
Occasionally, we will pick up a copy of Biblical Archaeology Review. There's a part of me that wanted to be Indiana Jones when I was growing up. Well, without all the face melting parts, I guess. In a recent issue of B.A.R. there was an article about the Maccabees. Okay, so I'm writing about context, I guess I need to step away from the B.A.R. conversation, briefly, to bring you all into MY contextual world.
I'm off in my own little world, but that's alright, they know me there.
Judas Maccabee (Judah Maccabeus), was the son of a Jewish priest (Mattathias), and led the revolt against the Seleucid empire. This entire "conflict" is covered completely in scripture....oh, wait, I see a handful of you digging through your Bibles...Brad, I can't find it, and don't remember this story from Sunday School...you're making this up! I'm not. I promise. The story of the Maccabees is recorded in the Book of Maccabeees (I thru IV) in the deuterocanonical books. These books are often referred to as the Apocrypha, but those in the Orthodox traditions (Greek, Easter, Russian) find the term Apocrypha to be offensive. The deuterocanonical (secondary canon) books represent the jewish literature/scripture written in the intertestamental period. Yes, there were actually things written in the 300 years between Malachi's last word, and Matthew's first!!! (Which, actually, Mark was written first....but I digress) The books of the Maccabees is where we get the story of Hannukah. We can discuss the value and purpose of the deuterocanonical books another time. Just so you all know, I believe that even though we are not ACTUALLY Jewish, our ETHNIC and CULTURAL heritage is Jewish by way of Christ. (I remember reading somewhere that He was Jewish....probably on the Internet)
So, B.A.R. had an article on the Maccabees, specifically about Judas Maccabee's tomb. Fascinating. During a roughly 60 year period, Jewish tombs were often HUGE, cathedral like facades....marble, columns, carvings, different architectures. When Jesus was "Woe"ing the Pharisees in Matthew 23, He compared them to whitewashed tombs that on the outside are beautiful, and on the inside are full of rotting corpses. It is generally believed that He was referring to the tombs of this period, because we know that during Jesus's day, tombs were VERY uneventful...an unadorned hole, with a rock as a door.
Rob Bell, in Velvet Elvis, talks about Jesus and the disciples in Cesarea-Phillipi. C-P was the "world-center" of the goat god, Pan. Bell paints a word-picture of the nearby cliff with a giant crack in it, from which the worshippers of Pan believed the spirits of hell would come and go. (Makes hell sound a little like beehive, actually.) Pan's followers built a temple at that spot where the followers could do all sort of things with goats. (All sorts of things = the G rated version of what is effectively NC-17 for mature audiences only. I think you understand.) Guess what the crack was called? -- The Gates of Hell. So, Jesus, as He tells the disciples in Matthew 16, that "on this rock" (Peter) He would build his church, and even the Gates of Hell would not be able to stand against it. He was pulling in a cultural reference that the disciples would immediately recognize. Not just that, He was pointing out that the people, Pan's worshippers, and those like them, would not be able to stand against the onslaught of the Kingdom of God!!! That just amazes me.
So, I'm drawn to the fact that I don't know anything. I don't fully understand the cultural aspects of what Jesus said. If I can understand that, then I can more easily draw the correlation to what it means for us as believers today.
Ugh. Now, I have a lot more reading to do.
Over the last month or so, the amount of cultural history I don't know has overwhelmed me. Oh, I know LOTS of factual history...what battles took place when, who was President of the U.S.A. in what year, I even know how to look up things on the Internet. After all, you can trust EVERYTHING on the Internet, right?
My wife and I subscribe to Christian History magazine. It has really opened my eyes to some things that I just couldn't really get anywhere else. It's a very broad overview of a lot of topics, and constantly gives me MORE TO READ. Yeah, that's what I need to do...read more. Christian History does a great job of providing multiple sides to a biography. (trying to be journalistically fair) Jan Hus, Thomas Merton, Thomas A'Kempis, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, are just a few of the names of people profiled in the last few years. Lots of times, we will see something we want to explore further, often archaeology based. (i.e. Dead Sea Scrolls, etc.)
Occasionally, we will pick up a copy of Biblical Archaeology Review. There's a part of me that wanted to be Indiana Jones when I was growing up. Well, without all the face melting parts, I guess. In a recent issue of B.A.R. there was an article about the Maccabees. Okay, so I'm writing about context, I guess I need to step away from the B.A.R. conversation, briefly, to bring you all into MY contextual world.
I'm off in my own little world, but that's alright, they know me there.
Judas Maccabee (Judah Maccabeus), was the son of a Jewish priest (Mattathias), and led the revolt against the Seleucid empire. This entire "conflict" is covered completely in scripture....oh, wait, I see a handful of you digging through your Bibles...Brad, I can't find it, and don't remember this story from Sunday School...you're making this up! I'm not. I promise. The story of the Maccabees is recorded in the Book of Maccabeees (I thru IV) in the deuterocanonical books. These books are often referred to as the Apocrypha, but those in the Orthodox traditions (Greek, Easter, Russian) find the term Apocrypha to be offensive. The deuterocanonical (secondary canon) books represent the jewish literature/scripture written in the intertestamental period. Yes, there were actually things written in the 300 years between Malachi's last word, and Matthew's first!!! (Which, actually, Mark was written first....but I digress) The books of the Maccabees is where we get the story of Hannukah. We can discuss the value and purpose of the deuterocanonical books another time. Just so you all know, I believe that even though we are not ACTUALLY Jewish, our ETHNIC and CULTURAL heritage is Jewish by way of Christ. (I remember reading somewhere that He was Jewish....probably on the Internet)
So, B.A.R. had an article on the Maccabees, specifically about Judas Maccabee's tomb. Fascinating. During a roughly 60 year period, Jewish tombs were often HUGE, cathedral like facades....marble, columns, carvings, different architectures. When Jesus was "Woe"ing the Pharisees in Matthew 23, He compared them to whitewashed tombs that on the outside are beautiful, and on the inside are full of rotting corpses. It is generally believed that He was referring to the tombs of this period, because we know that during Jesus's day, tombs were VERY uneventful...an unadorned hole, with a rock as a door.
Rob Bell, in Velvet Elvis, talks about Jesus and the disciples in Cesarea-Phillipi. C-P was the "world-center" of the goat god, Pan. Bell paints a word-picture of the nearby cliff with a giant crack in it, from which the worshippers of Pan believed the spirits of hell would come and go. (Makes hell sound a little like beehive, actually.) Pan's followers built a temple at that spot where the followers could do all sort of things with goats. (All sorts of things = the G rated version of what is effectively NC-17 for mature audiences only. I think you understand.) Guess what the crack was called? -- The Gates of Hell. So, Jesus, as He tells the disciples in Matthew 16, that "on this rock" (Peter) He would build his church, and even the Gates of Hell would not be able to stand against it. He was pulling in a cultural reference that the disciples would immediately recognize. Not just that, He was pointing out that the people, Pan's worshippers, and those like them, would not be able to stand against the onslaught of the Kingdom of God!!! That just amazes me.
So, I'm drawn to the fact that I don't know anything. I don't fully understand the cultural aspects of what Jesus said. If I can understand that, then I can more easily draw the correlation to what it means for us as believers today.
Ugh. Now, I have a lot more reading to do.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Legacy and Remembrance - A Trip to Canada
Okay, folks, yet another break from the conversation at hand to pass on some things about my life. Yep, yep, yep, sometimes life gets in the way.
I posted about two weeks ago that my grandfather was in the hospital up in Canada. Well, to make a long story short, he died. I heard about it 45 minutes after he passed (Monday morning April 13th), and was informed later that day that the memorial service would be at 1:30 in the afternoon on Wednesday…in Calgary….two days away. It wasn’t rocket science to figure out that if I wanted to be THERE, I’d have to leave on Monday. So, I called my sister who lives here in the Seattle area and we put together the plan for driving to Calgary, Alberta. We left around 2:30pm, Monday afternoon.
My sister, my wife, my eight year old, my two year old, and I piled into my 2005 Honda CR-V, and headed East. Cozy.
Dinnertime rolled around before we got to Spokane. We made it to glorious, Ritzville, Washington. Now, don’t get your hopes up; Ritzville doesn’t exactly live up to its name. We stopped at Jake’s Restaurant.
Jake’s…with the “24 hour tire repair” sign in the window. Ah, Jake’s. As far as five star restaurants go, this one didn’t even get off the planet. Think about the greasiest, most questionable, road food, drive in, diner, dive, you’ve ever seen on Feeding on Asphalt, and you are approaching, but not quite there yet for an image. Alton Brown would start first by having dark suited men coming in acting like food inspectors. This place was scary. HOWEVER, the service was not too shabby. The food was decent. The fries were great. And the locals thought that my kids were cute. Our two year old kept standing up and pointing to the pictures (that were for sale) and saying, “hummingbird” or “eagle” depending on the bird of choice. Very Vanna White, and exceptionally cute.
We left Ritzville and headed for Spokane, cut North on 2 and drove to meet up with Hwy 95 at Sandpoint, Idaho. Then, we drove North from Sandpoint to the U.S./Canadian border…at 1:00 in the morning. (I had forgotten about the time-zone change.) I honestly wonder how many ways one can be asked one has fruit in the car.
“Do you have any fruit.”
“No, sir.”
“Weapons?”
“No.”
“More than 10,000 dollars in cash?”
“No.”
“Do you have any fruit?”
“Uh, no.”
“Where you headed?”
“Calgary, for a funeral. Staying the night in Cranbrook.”
“Who all is in the car?”
“My sister, my wife, my daughter, and this is my son.”
“Do you have any fruit?”
“Uh…..no, sir. No fruit.”
He looked over our passports/birth certificates, asked the kids if I was daddy, etc; one more time if we had fruit, and then let us on our way. I appreciate the security of our borders. Terrorists BEWARE, if they even THINK you are bringing fruit into the country…..oh, baby…..it’s all over! (SIDE NOTE: For the record, I know most of the people who read my blog. I don’t think very many of them are terrorists. If you know any terrorists, please tell them to read my blog. Maybe they’ll get something out of it that surprises them, other than my advice on crossing the border with fruit. Just a suggestion)
We arrived at the Super 8 in Cranbrook. Don’t stay there. ‘Nuff said. Okay, one more thing. Eeeeeeeew. There, ‘nuff said.
Tuesday morning, we left Cranbrook around 8:00 and headed north to Radium Hot Springs where I missed my turnoff, and ended up going to connect with the TransCanada highway at the town of Golden. We stopped in Golden for lunch. Our 8 year old saw a Chinese restaurant….”I want Chinese, I want Chinese”. So, we went in. The Red Diamond Chinese restaurant…..see if you can sense a theme…..Eeeeeeeew. ‘Nuff said. We all had burgers. No fries, no sides, no nothing. Burger, bare plate. Well, it was cheap.
We rolled into Cochrane, Alberta (Just Northwest of Calgary) and hit our hotel. HOORAY!!! God is Good. The Travelodge in Cochrane is now one of my top places to stay. Service, facilities, beds, rooms, amenities, all were top notch. It was even across the street from a Tim Horton’s. (If you’re not Canadian, you won’t understand why that’s important. Hmmm….I’m not Canadian. HA HA HA HA. But, for the Canadians that read my blog, they’ll get it.) After dropping off our stuff at the hotel, we drove North a short distance to the RV park where my parents were staying.
Today’s Lesson: Don’t Mess with the Mind of Your Barista
My wife likes her coffee “not too hot”. A friend of ours has a thermometer on his watch. Once, she said, “This is perfect. Dan, how hot is it?” He pointed his watch at it, and informed us that the coffee was one hundred and twenty degrees. It’s important to understand that, because I now order my wife’s coffee at that temperature. The Starbucks in Cochrane is relatively new. I went in, ordered my Grande Caramel Macchiato, and a Double-Tall Latte, 120 degrees. The barista’s eyes went huge! “ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY DEGREES?!?!?!” Then, it hit me. Canada. OH, THOSE CANADIANS. The poor girl was thinking 120 degrees Celsius. (Roughly 248 degrees Fahrenheit) Boy, I’m glad I got that worked out, or my wife would have been in the hospital.
The funeral on Wednesday was exciting! First, I got to see my aunts and uncles from my grandpa’s side of the family. I rarely get to see them, and even more rarely see them together in the same place. One uncle is a missionary in Thailand, one is a an aerospace engineer in Missouri, one aunt and her husband are taking a missionary position in Mexico City, and the other aunt lives in Calgary with her husband. I miss them all terribly, and it’s always great to see them. Now, on to the story…where is the excitement?
The “family” met downstairs in the basement of the church, and prepared to enter the sanctuary as a group. My uncle who lives just North of Calgary had to wait for my aunt (his wife) who has Multiple Sclerosis and is wheelchair bound to arrive from her care facility on a special bus. We all headed upstairs, while he got into the elevator with my aunt. They got stuck in the elevator. We’re all waiting to enter the sanctuary, the music is playing, and there’s all sorts of shouting from inside the elevator. Chaos. Ushers rushing around, looking for someone who knows how the elevator works. My cousins running up and down the stairs, taking “orders” from my uncle. Someone drained all of the oil from the elevator to drop it back down to the bottom floor. My uncle pressed the emergency alarm. Klaxons going off all around. The elevator was rated for 550 lbs. Well, with my aunt’s electric wheelchair, my aunt, my uncle, and two of their grandkids, they exceeded that limit. By dropping them to the bottom floor, and letting everyone off but my aunt and one of the grandkids, made it possible to lift the chair up to the top floor.
The funeral was excellent. My missionary uncle acted as the master of ceremonies and did a phenomenal job. We sang multiple hymns; another uncle and my grandpa’s youngest brother gave eulogies and tributes. Then another of grandpa’s brothers (he only had 16 brothers and sisters) gave another tribute. Then, my dad got up, and I nearly lost it. When my dad gets choked up talking about his kids, I can’t control it. The tears come. He nearly lost his composure as well, but that was partly because my sister was crying right next to me. It was a beautiful service, followed by a reception downstairs.
Thursday was the burial. We stood around the grave, sang a hymn, and talked of memories of grandpa. It was special, and I’m very glad I was there. That afternoon, mom, dad, and my sister drove to Didsbury to see some other relatives, but I took the kids to a historical/amusement park in Calgary. That lightened the mood significantly. It was a wonderful day.
Friday morning, we left Calgary/Cochrane and started for home. (Coming back into the States, we were asked about fruit again. Apparently, it’s a real problem.) We made it to Spokane, but couldn’t find a hotel and ended up driving all the way to Moses Lake. We then left for home Saturday morning and got into Seattle around Noon.
2300 miles. I don’t want to drive anymore for a while.
So, that’s my trip. It was great to see my relatives, and people that I haven’t seen for a lot of years. My family is extremely important to me. It’s a pity that we have to wait for a death to bring us back together in person.
I will respond to the remainder of your original post, Natalie, soon. I will also respond to your response to the original response. The conversation must continue.
I posted about two weeks ago that my grandfather was in the hospital up in Canada. Well, to make a long story short, he died. I heard about it 45 minutes after he passed (Monday morning April 13th), and was informed later that day that the memorial service would be at 1:30 in the afternoon on Wednesday…in Calgary….two days away. It wasn’t rocket science to figure out that if I wanted to be THERE, I’d have to leave on Monday. So, I called my sister who lives here in the Seattle area and we put together the plan for driving to Calgary, Alberta. We left around 2:30pm, Monday afternoon.
My sister, my wife, my eight year old, my two year old, and I piled into my 2005 Honda CR-V, and headed East. Cozy.
Dinnertime rolled around before we got to Spokane. We made it to glorious, Ritzville, Washington. Now, don’t get your hopes up; Ritzville doesn’t exactly live up to its name. We stopped at Jake’s Restaurant.
Jake’s…with the “24 hour tire repair” sign in the window. Ah, Jake’s. As far as five star restaurants go, this one didn’t even get off the planet. Think about the greasiest, most questionable, road food, drive in, diner, dive, you’ve ever seen on Feeding on Asphalt, and you are approaching, but not quite there yet for an image. Alton Brown would start first by having dark suited men coming in acting like food inspectors. This place was scary. HOWEVER, the service was not too shabby. The food was decent. The fries were great. And the locals thought that my kids were cute. Our two year old kept standing up and pointing to the pictures (that were for sale) and saying, “hummingbird” or “eagle” depending on the bird of choice. Very Vanna White, and exceptionally cute. We left Ritzville and headed for Spokane, cut North on 2 and drove to meet up with Hwy 95 at Sandpoint, Idaho. Then, we drove North from Sandpoint to the U.S./Canadian border…at 1:00 in the morning. (I had forgotten about the time-zone change.) I honestly wonder how many ways one can be asked one has fruit in the car.
“Do you have any fruit.”
“No, sir.”
“Weapons?”
“No.”
“More than 10,000 dollars in cash?”
“No.”
“Do you have any fruit?”
“Uh, no.”
“Where you headed?”
“Calgary, for a funeral. Staying the night in Cranbrook.”
“Who all is in the car?”
“My sister, my wife, my daughter, and this is my son.”
“Do you have any fruit?”
“Uh…..no, sir. No fruit.”
He looked over our passports/birth certificates, asked the kids if I was daddy, etc; one more time if we had fruit, and then let us on our way. I appreciate the security of our borders. Terrorists BEWARE, if they even THINK you are bringing fruit into the country…..oh, baby…..it’s all over! (SIDE NOTE: For the record, I know most of the people who read my blog. I don’t think very many of them are terrorists. If you know any terrorists, please tell them to read my blog. Maybe they’ll get something out of it that surprises them, other than my advice on crossing the border with fruit. Just a suggestion)
We arrived at the Super 8 in Cranbrook. Don’t stay there. ‘Nuff said. Okay, one more thing. Eeeeeeeew. There, ‘nuff said.
Tuesday morning, we left Cranbrook around 8:00 and headed north to Radium Hot Springs where I missed my turnoff, and ended up going to connect with the TransCanada highway at the town of Golden. We stopped in Golden for lunch. Our 8 year old saw a Chinese restaurant….”I want Chinese, I want Chinese”. So, we went in. The Red Diamond Chinese restaurant…..see if you can sense a theme…..Eeeeeeeew. ‘Nuff said. We all had burgers. No fries, no sides, no nothing. Burger, bare plate. Well, it was cheap.
We rolled into Cochrane, Alberta (Just Northwest of Calgary) and hit our hotel. HOORAY!!! God is Good. The Travelodge in Cochrane is now one of my top places to stay. Service, facilities, beds, rooms, amenities, all were top notch. It was even across the street from a Tim Horton’s. (If you’re not Canadian, you won’t understand why that’s important. Hmmm….I’m not Canadian. HA HA HA HA. But, for the Canadians that read my blog, they’ll get it.) After dropping off our stuff at the hotel, we drove North a short distance to the RV park where my parents were staying.
Today’s Lesson: Don’t Mess with the Mind of Your Barista
My wife likes her coffee “not too hot”. A friend of ours has a thermometer on his watch. Once, she said, “This is perfect. Dan, how hot is it?” He pointed his watch at it, and informed us that the coffee was one hundred and twenty degrees. It’s important to understand that, because I now order my wife’s coffee at that temperature. The Starbucks in Cochrane is relatively new. I went in, ordered my Grande Caramel Macchiato, and a Double-Tall Latte, 120 degrees. The barista’s eyes went huge! “ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY DEGREES?!?!?!” Then, it hit me. Canada. OH, THOSE CANADIANS. The poor girl was thinking 120 degrees Celsius. (Roughly 248 degrees Fahrenheit) Boy, I’m glad I got that worked out, or my wife would have been in the hospital.
The funeral on Wednesday was exciting! First, I got to see my aunts and uncles from my grandpa’s side of the family. I rarely get to see them, and even more rarely see them together in the same place. One uncle is a missionary in Thailand, one is a an aerospace engineer in Missouri, one aunt and her husband are taking a missionary position in Mexico City, and the other aunt lives in Calgary with her husband. I miss them all terribly, and it’s always great to see them. Now, on to the story…where is the excitement?
The “family” met downstairs in the basement of the church, and prepared to enter the sanctuary as a group. My uncle who lives just North of Calgary had to wait for my aunt (his wife) who has Multiple Sclerosis and is wheelchair bound to arrive from her care facility on a special bus. We all headed upstairs, while he got into the elevator with my aunt. They got stuck in the elevator. We’re all waiting to enter the sanctuary, the music is playing, and there’s all sorts of shouting from inside the elevator. Chaos. Ushers rushing around, looking for someone who knows how the elevator works. My cousins running up and down the stairs, taking “orders” from my uncle. Someone drained all of the oil from the elevator to drop it back down to the bottom floor. My uncle pressed the emergency alarm. Klaxons going off all around. The elevator was rated for 550 lbs. Well, with my aunt’s electric wheelchair, my aunt, my uncle, and two of their grandkids, they exceeded that limit. By dropping them to the bottom floor, and letting everyone off but my aunt and one of the grandkids, made it possible to lift the chair up to the top floor.
The funeral was excellent. My missionary uncle acted as the master of ceremonies and did a phenomenal job. We sang multiple hymns; another uncle and my grandpa’s youngest brother gave eulogies and tributes. Then another of grandpa’s brothers (he only had 16 brothers and sisters) gave another tribute. Then, my dad got up, and I nearly lost it. When my dad gets choked up talking about his kids, I can’t control it. The tears come. He nearly lost his composure as well, but that was partly because my sister was crying right next to me. It was a beautiful service, followed by a reception downstairs.
Thursday was the burial. We stood around the grave, sang a hymn, and talked of memories of grandpa. It was special, and I’m very glad I was there. That afternoon, mom, dad, and my sister drove to Didsbury to see some other relatives, but I took the kids to a historical/amusement park in Calgary. That lightened the mood significantly. It was a wonderful day.
Friday morning, we left Calgary/Cochrane and started for home. (Coming back into the States, we were asked about fruit again. Apparently, it’s a real problem.) We made it to Spokane, but couldn’t find a hotel and ended up driving all the way to Moses Lake. We then left for home Saturday morning and got into Seattle around Noon.
2300 miles. I don’t want to drive anymore for a while.
So, that’s my trip. It was great to see my relatives, and people that I haven’t seen for a lot of years. My family is extremely important to me. It’s a pity that we have to wait for a death to bring us back together in person.
I will respond to the remainder of your original post, Natalie, soon. I will also respond to your response to the original response. The conversation must continue.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
The Progression of the Spiritual Life
(“Salvation and the ‘Sinners Prayer’ Part III”)
Brad—you bring a great element to this discussion, which is along the lines of where I wanted to go with it. I think that we have become accustomed (as I mentioned in my first post) to the “instant gratification” approach to life (which includes faith and love and all that other stuff). We want God to touch us with a magical wand that turns us instantly into the kind of person he wants us to be. Well, at least I do sometimes. It sure would be easier than having to actually work at being holy.
Instead of looking at our spirituality as a one-time event, we need to see it as a road to be traveled, a journey, a progression. The very path (meaning the experiences we go through) are part of what shapes us as a whole being. I was working on an assignment for class the other day and we were contemplating the difference between the instant gratification mentality verses the process mentality of how we grow. It got me thinking about growing up. I don’t know about you, but when I was growing up (meaning my body was changing from a child’s to an adult’s), I experienced growing pains. My bones, muscles, ligaments and tendons were being stretched and building more mass to be able to support me. Sometimes, this hurt. I remember going through periods where my body ached and I was sore all over.
While I do not pretend to be a doctor; I would assume that if we (our bodies) changed from an infants to an adult body over night (in an instant); the growth would be so drastic that it would likely kill us (I believe that there is actually a medical condition where a person’s body can grow so fast that it does kill them). Could we not apply this very concept to our spiritual growth? We want so badly sometimes to just be changed, but what if that change was so drastic that it would literally kill us? Perhaps there is something to this whole progression/process thing after all!
So what is the pilgrimage that we travel? (By the way, I agree that there are not necessarily varying levels of salvation, rather there are varying levels of spirituality.) Many great Church fathers and mothers have presented a four stage process that we go through. The first is awakening. This is the stage that we encounter God and ourselves in a way we have never experienced before. The second is purgation. This is the stage where God brings to light the sin in our lives and we learn to relinquish those things. We make amends for things we have done wrong, we seek to be more Christlike, we are faced with the darkness within us and recognize the need for the Light of Christ to fill us. The third stage is illumination. During this stage, we seek to fully consecrate ourselves to God. We take all of the ugliness and we surrender it to God. We encounter God in such a way that we find he is always there and constantly holding us and transforming us into the likeness of Christ. The last stage is union. It is usually in this stage that people encounter the dark night of the senses and the dark night of the soul. We cannot feel God, we have no emotional security that he is there. But it is in these times that our faith is put the test and we continue to depend on God even though we can’t “feel” him. This is also the stage that many mystics enter into. Finding the complete joy of God and entering into his presence without the pretense of emotional bondage. It is a time of truly mystical union to Christ. See Robert Mulholland’s book Invitation to a Journey.
Here is the interesting part of the discussion. God can be taking us through different stages all at the same time. There may be areas of our life where we have come to full wholeness in Christ while God is just awakening another area that needs to be transformed (Mulholland). This means that we will go through these stages in more of a cyclical than a linear path. The most important thing to remember here is that it is God who is taking us into these stages; he is the one who guides and directs and transforms. We cannot transform ourselves (that would be called conformity and usually it is to our own ideals of who Christ is—in other words, legalism).
Back to the questions at hand. My concern with holiness isn’t so much being able to tell in other people, but that we should be aware of our own Christlikeness. I learned an interesting thing the other day about the “cross” that we must bear in our daily lives. I don’t know about you, but I had always assumed that the “cross” was external. It was the nasty co-worker, the neighbor I didn’t get a long with, the family member who irritated me, or the physical ailments I struggle with. But the shocking truth I’ve come to realize (again, see Mulholland), is that our “cross” consists of the points of unChristlikeness in my life. This (or these) is the cross I must bear. A holiness meter, while interesting in an of itself, is not the point. Understanding where I fail to live as Christ lived is the point.
So, with ALL of this being said. How do we convey the understanding that a one-time prayer does not necessarily constitute salvation? That salvation is something that we must (as you pointed out) work out with “fear and trembling.” That holiness is not something that we do in and of ourselves but it is rather the work of Christ in us, transforming us to his very image. That salvation is not being saved from hell, or from others, or even from Satan, but from ourselves. Why is this message so hard for Western Christians to understand?
Brad—you bring a great element to this discussion, which is along the lines of where I wanted to go with it. I think that we have become accustomed (as I mentioned in my first post) to the “instant gratification” approach to life (which includes faith and love and all that other stuff). We want God to touch us with a magical wand that turns us instantly into the kind of person he wants us to be. Well, at least I do sometimes. It sure would be easier than having to actually work at being holy.
Instead of looking at our spirituality as a one-time event, we need to see it as a road to be traveled, a journey, a progression. The very path (meaning the experiences we go through) are part of what shapes us as a whole being. I was working on an assignment for class the other day and we were contemplating the difference between the instant gratification mentality verses the process mentality of how we grow. It got me thinking about growing up. I don’t know about you, but when I was growing up (meaning my body was changing from a child’s to an adult’s), I experienced growing pains. My bones, muscles, ligaments and tendons were being stretched and building more mass to be able to support me. Sometimes, this hurt. I remember going through periods where my body ached and I was sore all over.
While I do not pretend to be a doctor; I would assume that if we (our bodies) changed from an infants to an adult body over night (in an instant); the growth would be so drastic that it would likely kill us (I believe that there is actually a medical condition where a person’s body can grow so fast that it does kill them). Could we not apply this very concept to our spiritual growth? We want so badly sometimes to just be changed, but what if that change was so drastic that it would literally kill us? Perhaps there is something to this whole progression/process thing after all!
So what is the pilgrimage that we travel? (By the way, I agree that there are not necessarily varying levels of salvation, rather there are varying levels of spirituality.) Many great Church fathers and mothers have presented a four stage process that we go through. The first is awakening. This is the stage that we encounter God and ourselves in a way we have never experienced before. The second is purgation. This is the stage where God brings to light the sin in our lives and we learn to relinquish those things. We make amends for things we have done wrong, we seek to be more Christlike, we are faced with the darkness within us and recognize the need for the Light of Christ to fill us. The third stage is illumination. During this stage, we seek to fully consecrate ourselves to God. We take all of the ugliness and we surrender it to God. We encounter God in such a way that we find he is always there and constantly holding us and transforming us into the likeness of Christ. The last stage is union. It is usually in this stage that people encounter the dark night of the senses and the dark night of the soul. We cannot feel God, we have no emotional security that he is there. But it is in these times that our faith is put the test and we continue to depend on God even though we can’t “feel” him. This is also the stage that many mystics enter into. Finding the complete joy of God and entering into his presence without the pretense of emotional bondage. It is a time of truly mystical union to Christ. See Robert Mulholland’s book Invitation to a Journey.
Here is the interesting part of the discussion. God can be taking us through different stages all at the same time. There may be areas of our life where we have come to full wholeness in Christ while God is just awakening another area that needs to be transformed (Mulholland). This means that we will go through these stages in more of a cyclical than a linear path. The most important thing to remember here is that it is God who is taking us into these stages; he is the one who guides and directs and transforms. We cannot transform ourselves (that would be called conformity and usually it is to our own ideals of who Christ is—in other words, legalism).
Back to the questions at hand. My concern with holiness isn’t so much being able to tell in other people, but that we should be aware of our own Christlikeness. I learned an interesting thing the other day about the “cross” that we must bear in our daily lives. I don’t know about you, but I had always assumed that the “cross” was external. It was the nasty co-worker, the neighbor I didn’t get a long with, the family member who irritated me, or the physical ailments I struggle with. But the shocking truth I’ve come to realize (again, see Mulholland), is that our “cross” consists of the points of unChristlikeness in my life. This (or these) is the cross I must bear. A holiness meter, while interesting in an of itself, is not the point. Understanding where I fail to live as Christ lived is the point.
So, with ALL of this being said. How do we convey the understanding that a one-time prayer does not necessarily constitute salvation? That salvation is something that we must (as you pointed out) work out with “fear and trembling.” That holiness is not something that we do in and of ourselves but it is rather the work of Christ in us, transforming us to his very image. That salvation is not being saved from hell, or from others, or even from Satan, but from ourselves. Why is this message so hard for Western Christians to understand?
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Friday, August 03, 2007
Salvation and the "Sinner's Prayer" - Part II
First things first, everyone reading this blog….let me (Brad) make an introduction. A number of the posts here have been from a very dear friend of mine named Natalie. This blog originated as a joint place for a group that we are a part of that has these kinds of discussions by way of e-mail. We thought moving to a blog would allow us to manage threads better, etc. Well, Nat and I are the only ones who ever posted anything. HA HA. Now, that’s not a slam against our friends!!! The e-mail conversations continue, not as often as we’d like, but we’re still tight. A number of my friends wanted me to make some of my thoughts public, and a decision was made that this blog would become “mine”. HOWEVER, Natalie makes me think, and I want her involved. She has her own blog, but expect to see her as a regular here on mine.
Okay, Introduction over.
Now, Natalie, you wanted a response. Here’s mine. It was long enough, I thought it would be best to create it as its own topic.
What you lay out in the beginning of your post is something that comes straight from your Dad. I miss him. He and I used to talk about this all the time. God is not a vending machine. Faith is not a magic coin. You put the faith coin in the slot, pull the right plunger and **POOF** out comes the blessing candy bar. Even the “Sinner’s Prayer” – Lord, I’m a sinner, come into my heart – is consumer related. With the prayer itself being the magic coin. Now, before anyone comes to lynch me for sounding like personal salvation isn’t important, just hold off a second.
In the great commission, Jesus said that we are to go out and make disciples – learners. He did not say, “Go out and tell people that they have to ask me into their heart, and then they will be Christians.” So, I ask this question….Is it possible that one can become a learner of Christ’s way, and apply those lessons to one’s life without stepping over some magical “line of faith”? So, where does salvation come into it? The scripture tells us that Jesus came to seek and save the lost. Great, what are we saved from? Ourselves? Hell? Those who aren’t Christian? The salvation is from our state of being! It is from our fallen separation from God!
So, we are saved by grace through faith from this separation from God. As disciples we will be learners of Christ’s way. Once we learned everything, we’re done, right? That’s called holiness. We never stop learning. Therefore, we are never completely holy. And, my opinion, if anyone says they’re holy, they’re a hypocrite. OW, OW, my Nazarene blood cells are bursting in my veins. OW, OW, OW!!!! So, God says in Leviticus, “Be holy, because I am holy.” I need to do a word search in my Interlinear to find out what the exact form of “be” is there. But, then in Hebrews 12, the writer says, “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy”. Holy is something we have to make an effort to be.
In reference to questions 2 and 7 in your post, Nat, I’d say: There are not different levels of salvation, and if there are it’s not our concern. There are, however, different levels of holiness. But, just like salvation, it’s not our concern. We should aspire to be holy. Our actions will either be holy, not holy, or somewhere neutral. I would claim that the more we aspire to learn the way of Christ, to become more Christlike, our holiness will increase. I have not yet been fitted with my holiness meter chip, so I can’t tell you how holy I am or not. And because I can’t see your holiness meter, I can’t make a judgment whether I’m holier than thou or not.
So, is there a difference between being saved and being a Christian? Excellent question. If we are living in the way of Christ, and that means obeying his commandments and learning his “style”, and that means we are Christians, then there really isn’t a difference. If being saved means that from some magical point in my life where I said a prayer….then never again considered my actions or considered what the prayer meant…then there is a significant difference. I do not believe that our salvation is a one-time deal. I believe it is something we work out with fear and trembling. The Holy Spirit leading us into truth convinces and convicts us. So, if we have sin(s) in our life…..pick your favorite….and God works on one, bringing us to perfection in that area through our actively seeking to apply his way….but we continue to have another sin that God has not worked on yet, are we still approaching holiness? (and this is not linear…don’t put God in a box.)
BOOM – You get hit by a bus. You find yourself standing in front of Jesus being judged. “You are not completely holy. You still have areas of your life that I haven’t had a chance to work on, yet. There is no place for you here.” What do you think?
Are there dangers with this thought pattern? Sure. Doesn’t this promote sinning because you can deal with it later? ABSOLUTELY….let’s go out and sin more so that God’s grace will abound!!!! (For those of you reading this, who don’t know your Bible…read Romans…this is sarcasm/satire.) I am all for God making miraculous changes in one’s life. In fact, I deeply desire that he will make such changes in mine. However, experience has shown me that even the most broken souls grow over time into the truth that is God. A very good friend of mine, I met nearly 20 years ago. He was very “rough around the edges”, worked in a mill, and has now retired to run a food bank. Over the years, the Holy Spirit has softened those edges, given him a true heart for others, and completely changed him. But it wasn’t immediate. Miraculous….maybe…but not instantaneous.
Okay, I have to stop now….too many things going on. I will hit on some of the other questions later. Especially the topic of grace….one of my favorites. Hopefully, this will be a good teaser to what else I have to say.
Okay, Introduction over.
Now, Natalie, you wanted a response. Here’s mine. It was long enough, I thought it would be best to create it as its own topic.
What you lay out in the beginning of your post is something that comes straight from your Dad. I miss him. He and I used to talk about this all the time. God is not a vending machine. Faith is not a magic coin. You put the faith coin in the slot, pull the right plunger and **POOF** out comes the blessing candy bar. Even the “Sinner’s Prayer” – Lord, I’m a sinner, come into my heart – is consumer related. With the prayer itself being the magic coin. Now, before anyone comes to lynch me for sounding like personal salvation isn’t important, just hold off a second.
In the great commission, Jesus said that we are to go out and make disciples – learners. He did not say, “Go out and tell people that they have to ask me into their heart, and then they will be Christians.” So, I ask this question….Is it possible that one can become a learner of Christ’s way, and apply those lessons to one’s life without stepping over some magical “line of faith”? So, where does salvation come into it? The scripture tells us that Jesus came to seek and save the lost. Great, what are we saved from? Ourselves? Hell? Those who aren’t Christian? The salvation is from our state of being! It is from our fallen separation from God!
So, we are saved by grace through faith from this separation from God. As disciples we will be learners of Christ’s way. Once we learned everything, we’re done, right? That’s called holiness. We never stop learning. Therefore, we are never completely holy. And, my opinion, if anyone says they’re holy, they’re a hypocrite. OW, OW, my Nazarene blood cells are bursting in my veins. OW, OW, OW!!!! So, God says in Leviticus, “Be holy, because I am holy.” I need to do a word search in my Interlinear to find out what the exact form of “be” is there. But, then in Hebrews 12, the writer says, “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy”. Holy is something we have to make an effort to be.
In reference to questions 2 and 7 in your post, Nat, I’d say: There are not different levels of salvation, and if there are it’s not our concern. There are, however, different levels of holiness. But, just like salvation, it’s not our concern. We should aspire to be holy. Our actions will either be holy, not holy, or somewhere neutral. I would claim that the more we aspire to learn the way of Christ, to become more Christlike, our holiness will increase. I have not yet been fitted with my holiness meter chip, so I can’t tell you how holy I am or not. And because I can’t see your holiness meter, I can’t make a judgment whether I’m holier than thou or not.
So, is there a difference between being saved and being a Christian? Excellent question. If we are living in the way of Christ, and that means obeying his commandments and learning his “style”, and that means we are Christians, then there really isn’t a difference. If being saved means that from some magical point in my life where I said a prayer….then never again considered my actions or considered what the prayer meant…then there is a significant difference. I do not believe that our salvation is a one-time deal. I believe it is something we work out with fear and trembling. The Holy Spirit leading us into truth convinces and convicts us. So, if we have sin(s) in our life…..pick your favorite….and God works on one, bringing us to perfection in that area through our actively seeking to apply his way….but we continue to have another sin that God has not worked on yet, are we still approaching holiness? (and this is not linear…don’t put God in a box.)
BOOM – You get hit by a bus. You find yourself standing in front of Jesus being judged. “You are not completely holy. You still have areas of your life that I haven’t had a chance to work on, yet. There is no place for you here.” What do you think?
Are there dangers with this thought pattern? Sure. Doesn’t this promote sinning because you can deal with it later? ABSOLUTELY….let’s go out and sin more so that God’s grace will abound!!!! (For those of you reading this, who don’t know your Bible…read Romans…this is sarcasm/satire.) I am all for God making miraculous changes in one’s life. In fact, I deeply desire that he will make such changes in mine. However, experience has shown me that even the most broken souls grow over time into the truth that is God. A very good friend of mine, I met nearly 20 years ago. He was very “rough around the edges”, worked in a mill, and has now retired to run a food bank. Over the years, the Holy Spirit has softened those edges, given him a true heart for others, and completely changed him. But it wasn’t immediate. Miraculous….maybe…but not instantaneous.
Okay, I have to stop now….too many things going on. I will hit on some of the other questions later. Especially the topic of grace….one of my favorites. Hopefully, this will be a good teaser to what else I have to say.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Salvation and the “Sinner’s Prayer”
In our society, we have become prone to an immediate gratification spirit. We want what we want, when we want it, with as little effort and suffering as possible. I took Martial Arts for about 12 years, and in our ceremony for the passing of one belt to another, there was a question that was asked at every belt level and of every individual. The question was “do you believe everything worth having is worth suffering for?” Many Western individuals lack any sense of believing in something enough, wanting something so badly, that they are willing to suffer to have it. The mentality today, at least in Western Civilization, tends to be one where people are only willing to go after something if (1) there is a considerable chance for financial gain, (2) there is little work involved, (3) “it will make me look better,” and/or (4) “I can be elevated in the status I hold from a political or social standpoint.”
Some of you might be thinking, “well, yes, that is the world, they do go after things like that!” However, if you look around the Church today, you find this same attitude infesting the lives of her members. God is a god who is here for our gains, Jesus is the friend we’ve never had, and the Spirit is the one who will make everything better. All we require is that you profess Christ as Lord and repeat a little prayer and then you’re home-free. I am not knocking the sinner's prayer, if it is said with true remorse and longing to seek Jesus Christ in a real and deep experience. But, is it enough?
I believe with all my heart what scripture professes: that we are saved by grace through faith. However, we have slowly done away with any definition of faith that involves the holiness that Christ has called us to. Faith is now the equivalence of belief (or rather, professing formulaic propositions), which is something that is far from biblical. James says “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder” (2:18-19). He clearly believed that belief, just acknowledging that Jesus is God, is not enough.
Our family knew a gentleman who lived a truly worldly life. When he was confronted with this, he would say, “I believe in Jesus, so I am good to go! What else do I need?” Most Christians at this point would say that there are certain patterns of life that we, as followers of Christ, are asked to conform to. Jesus says “If you love me, you will obey what I command” (John 14:15). Again he says, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching” (John 14:23). Christians, by the authority of Scripture, are then justified in saying that there is more to being a Christian than just saying they believe in Jesus.
The most known bible verse of all time, John 3:16, states “For God so loved the world that he sent his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus is quoted elsewhere as saying "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24). By these verses, the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God, come to save the world, is justified in their belief that belief is enough.
How do we reconcile the two sides of the coin? On the one hand, we have the understanding that God calls us to be holy. He not only calls us, but he transforms us and empowers us to live holy lives (for example: Ex 19:5-7; 22:30-31; 31:12-14; Lev 11:43-46;19:1-3; 20:6-8; 20:7-9; 20:25-27; 21:5-7; 22:8-10; Deut 7:5-7; 14:1-3; 14:20-22; 26:18-19; 28:8-10; Ezra 9:1-3; Job 15:14-16; Ps. 89:4-7; Isa. 4:2-4; 62:11-12; Jer. 2:2-4; Ezek 20:11-13; 36:22-24; 37:27-28; 38:15-17; 39:26-28). On the other hand, we have Jesus telling us that all we need to do is to believe in him and we will be saved; this rightly affirms that our justification is through faith by the grace of God. But if we leave it all to grace, it can become very easy to slip into the heresy of universalism.
Rather than declaring that we have been wrong in our terminology for the last 2,000 years, I think it is more important to regain our understanding of what salvation, grace, and the call to holiness entail. Therefore, I want to propose the following questions for discussions. None of these questions declare my stance on any of this; rather they are questions that I have had popping up in my mind off and on for the last year or so. Some of these have been questions that I have thought of myself, others are questions that have been asked of me by someone else.
1. What is salvation? Is there any suffering on our part for salvation?
2. Are there different “levels” of salvation?
3. Is God’s grace really free?
4. Is there a difference between being saved and being a Christian?
5. If it all comes back to grace, can we really use any sort of test of orthodoxy for one’s beliefs?
6. Again, if it all comes back to grace, why can’t we cross the line to universalism?
7. What does the call to holiness have to do with salvation (if anything)?
8. If holiness, or Christlikeness, is our ultimate calling of God, can someone truly be saved without showing the fruits of this transformation?
9. When James says that we are to “show our faith by what we do” does that mean that if someone doesn’t live out their faith, that they are merely “professing with their mouth,” along with the demons, that there is a God?
10. hould the Church (universal) use a test of orthodoxy to determine if someone is saved? If so, what do you think it should be? If not, then are we giving permission to throw out orthodox doctrine?
Some of you might be thinking, “well, yes, that is the world, they do go after things like that!” However, if you look around the Church today, you find this same attitude infesting the lives of her members. God is a god who is here for our gains, Jesus is the friend we’ve never had, and the Spirit is the one who will make everything better. All we require is that you profess Christ as Lord and repeat a little prayer and then you’re home-free. I am not knocking the sinner's prayer, if it is said with true remorse and longing to seek Jesus Christ in a real and deep experience. But, is it enough?
I believe with all my heart what scripture professes: that we are saved by grace through faith. However, we have slowly done away with any definition of faith that involves the holiness that Christ has called us to. Faith is now the equivalence of belief (or rather, professing formulaic propositions), which is something that is far from biblical. James says “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder” (2:18-19). He clearly believed that belief, just acknowledging that Jesus is God, is not enough.
Our family knew a gentleman who lived a truly worldly life. When he was confronted with this, he would say, “I believe in Jesus, so I am good to go! What else do I need?” Most Christians at this point would say that there are certain patterns of life that we, as followers of Christ, are asked to conform to. Jesus says “If you love me, you will obey what I command” (John 14:15). Again he says, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching” (John 14:23). Christians, by the authority of Scripture, are then justified in saying that there is more to being a Christian than just saying they believe in Jesus.
The most known bible verse of all time, John 3:16, states “For God so loved the world that he sent his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus is quoted elsewhere as saying "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24). By these verses, the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God, come to save the world, is justified in their belief that belief is enough.
How do we reconcile the two sides of the coin? On the one hand, we have the understanding that God calls us to be holy. He not only calls us, but he transforms us and empowers us to live holy lives (for example: Ex 19:5-7; 22:30-31; 31:12-14; Lev 11:43-46;19:1-3; 20:6-8; 20:7-9; 20:25-27; 21:5-7; 22:8-10; Deut 7:5-7; 14:1-3; 14:20-22; 26:18-19; 28:8-10; Ezra 9:1-3; Job 15:14-16; Ps. 89:4-7; Isa. 4:2-4; 62:11-12; Jer. 2:2-4; Ezek 20:11-13; 36:22-24; 37:27-28; 38:15-17; 39:26-28). On the other hand, we have Jesus telling us that all we need to do is to believe in him and we will be saved; this rightly affirms that our justification is through faith by the grace of God. But if we leave it all to grace, it can become very easy to slip into the heresy of universalism.
Rather than declaring that we have been wrong in our terminology for the last 2,000 years, I think it is more important to regain our understanding of what salvation, grace, and the call to holiness entail. Therefore, I want to propose the following questions for discussions. None of these questions declare my stance on any of this; rather they are questions that I have had popping up in my mind off and on for the last year or so. Some of these have been questions that I have thought of myself, others are questions that have been asked of me by someone else.
1. What is salvation? Is there any suffering on our part for salvation?
2. Are there different “levels” of salvation?
3. Is God’s grace really free?
4. Is there a difference between being saved and being a Christian?
5. If it all comes back to grace, can we really use any sort of test of orthodoxy for one’s beliefs?
6. Again, if it all comes back to grace, why can’t we cross the line to universalism?
7. What does the call to holiness have to do with salvation (if anything)?
8. If holiness, or Christlikeness, is our ultimate calling of God, can someone truly be saved without showing the fruits of this transformation?
9. When James says that we are to “show our faith by what we do” does that mean that if someone doesn’t live out their faith, that they are merely “professing with their mouth,” along with the demons, that there is a God?
10. hould the Church (universal) use a test of orthodoxy to determine if someone is saved? If so, what do you think it should be? If not, then are we giving permission to throw out orthodox doctrine?
Deep thoughts, for a Thursday....
I was driving in to work yesterday, on a beautifully sunny Pacific Northwest day. As I drove South on Hwy 405 on Seattle’s Eastside my eyes were filled with an incredible sight. Mt. Rainer (all 14,411 feet of her greatness) TOWERED over the landscape. On clear days, she is bigger, stronger, more HDTV than ever. Every glacier on the Northwest side of the mountain stood crisply defined. The sun gave 
the Eastern slopes a golden coloring.
I was in awe of God’s creation.
It’s been a hard week. My grandpa is in the hospital up in Canada and is not doing well. (Repeated heart attacks, pneumonia, etc.) One of my colleagues at work, my right hand man, just lost his dad last night. (And now, we are trying to reach him in New Mexico on a 65 mile backpacking trip. Not easy.)
Rolling through my head is an old hymn. Oh, how I wish we sang more hymns at church. Sorry, the cheesy choruses that have become common fodder in most churches just don’t have the same impact. (Oh, some do....but not many)
In 1883, Daniel Whittle wrote the hymn "I Know Whom I Have Believed" and those words have been running through my head for the past two days.
This Christ. This Jesus. This God in the flesh. He came, unconditionally, to reconcile creation to him. What is grace? It’s unmerited favor. It is so beyond me to even think that he would make such love known to us.
But I know Whom I have believèd,
I can’t put God in a box. His mysteries show themselves in ways I can’t even begin to understand. I just recently finished Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis, someone had actually recommended Bell to me. I hadn’t read any of his stuff, but knew of him. Anyway, his comments in the book about the mysteries of the scripture were exquisite. Every time I open the Bible, even to a passage that I know by heart, I am often struck by something new. If I can be struck by something new, then the value of that passage, the truth of that passage, and my understanding of my own faith is increased. The Holy Spirit works! If we claim one interpretation of one piece of scripture, we have put God in a box. All I know is that by believing in Him, and taking all of the things He teaches me through his Spirit, I can humbly continue learning.
Can you understand it? Can anyone?
There is no recipe for the perfection of the movement of the Spirit. You can’t map it out. And each is convinced/convicted differently. All I can do is balance it against my experience and reason, and realize that those growth points, those movements, those revelations have made my faith what it is.
No matter what happens, God is there. I can pray to him where I’m at. I am blessed to have a family that on both sides (mom and dad) had a strong relationship to God. As my Grandpa lays dying, with his family surrounding his bed, I feel the legacy across the family holding us together in unity.
Moses was blessed to see God’s backside. Or more importantly, see “where God had been”. I always say that we are blessed to be a blessing to others. If the only “God” that people see is through me, that’s almost enough. But, what about me? Selfishly, I want to see God in others as well…and learn, adore and be blessed by them.
I know not when my Lord may come,
Father God, may I live my life in a way that is pleasing to you. I praise you for your glory. I praise you for your teachings. I praise you for my family. May this legacy continue to my kids, and their kids, and their kids, and so on.
the Eastern slopes a golden coloring.I was in awe of God’s creation.
It’s been a hard week. My grandpa is in the hospital up in Canada and is not doing well. (Repeated heart attacks, pneumonia, etc.) One of my colleagues at work, my right hand man, just lost his dad last night. (And now, we are trying to reach him in New Mexico on a 65 mile backpacking trip. Not easy.)
Rolling through my head is an old hymn. Oh, how I wish we sang more hymns at church. Sorry, the cheesy choruses that have become common fodder in most churches just don’t have the same impact. (Oh, some do....but not many)
In 1883, Daniel Whittle wrote the hymn "I Know Whom I Have Believed" and those words have been running through my head for the past two days.
I know not why God’s wondrous grace
To me He hath made known,
Nor why, unworthy, Christ in love
Redeemed me for His own.
This Christ. This Jesus. This God in the flesh. He came, unconditionally, to reconcile creation to him. What is grace? It’s unmerited favor. It is so beyond me to even think that he would make such love known to us.
But I know Whom I have believèd,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.
I can’t put God in a box. His mysteries show themselves in ways I can’t even begin to understand. I just recently finished Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis, someone had actually recommended Bell to me. I hadn’t read any of his stuff, but knew of him. Anyway, his comments in the book about the mysteries of the scripture were exquisite. Every time I open the Bible, even to a passage that I know by heart, I am often struck by something new. If I can be struck by something new, then the value of that passage, the truth of that passage, and my understanding of my own faith is increased. The Holy Spirit works! If we claim one interpretation of one piece of scripture, we have put God in a box. All I know is that by believing in Him, and taking all of the things He teaches me through his Spirit, I can humbly continue learning.
I know not how this saving faith
To me He did impart,
Nor how believing in His Word
Wrought peace within my heart.
Can you understand it? Can anyone?
I know not how the Spirit moves,
Convincing us of sin,
Revealing Jesus through the Word,
Creating faith in Him.
There is no recipe for the perfection of the movement of the Spirit. You can’t map it out. And each is convinced/convicted differently. All I can do is balance it against my experience and reason, and realize that those growth points, those movements, those revelations have made my faith what it is.
But I know Whom I have believèd,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.
No matter what happens, God is there. I can pray to him where I’m at. I am blessed to have a family that on both sides (mom and dad) had a strong relationship to God. As my Grandpa lays dying, with his family surrounding his bed, I feel the legacy across the family holding us together in unity.
I know not what of good or ill
May be reserved for me,
Of weary ways or golden days,
Before His face I see.
Moses was blessed to see God’s backside. Or more importantly, see “where God had been”. I always say that we are blessed to be a blessing to others. If the only “God” that people see is through me, that’s almost enough. But, what about me? Selfishly, I want to see God in others as well…and learn, adore and be blessed by them.
I know not when my Lord may come,
At night or noonday fair,
Nor if I walk the vale with Him,
Or meet Him in the air.
Father God, may I live my life in a way that is pleasing to you. I praise you for your glory. I praise you for your teachings. I praise you for my family. May this legacy continue to my kids, and their kids, and their kids, and so on.
Amen.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
And the first shall be last, and the last shall be first, and if I'm in the middle I don't have to move, right?
So, last night, I’m driving my 8 year old daughter to the church we are currently attending for their evening “Vacation Bible Camp”. Out of the blue, she asks, “Daddy, can I ask you question about the Bible?”
“Sure, babe, what’s up?”
“Well, I’m not sure I understand something.”
Great, I think, how deep will this get. There is SO MUCH about the Bible that I don’t understand!!! “Okay, what don’t you understand?”
“I don’t understand what it means when it says that the last will be first and the first will be last.”
Heh, that’s a good thing to not understand. I explained to her that when Jesus said that, he was promoting an attitude of humility and talking to the religious leaders of the day. I explained to her that the way we live, in the way of Christ, will be used as evidence in our judgment. (We’ve talked about judgment and what that means many times before.)
GREAT ANSWER, BRAD!!! WHOOHOO!!! Dodged that bullet. Sure, it opens the door for more questions, but she’ll stew on that for a while. Not exactly what I think that verse means, but it was a quick answer without a Bible right in front of me.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Am I last?”
Oh, boy. How do I answer this one? Think….think…..think…..
“Well, I think that being last is something that you have to work toward, but it’s not even that, being last is just something that you are. You don’t actually work to BECOME last. You work to become what God wants you to be, working to form yourself to be more Christlike. And if you are truly living in the way of Christ, then you will meet whatever God’s requirements are for being ‘last’. But, babe, this isn’t something you need to really worry about.”
She was quiet for a minute or two.
“What if there are a lot of people, all trying to be last? How do I get to be more last than them?”
My first thought was to say, hope that there are only 3 people, and then aim for #2. That way, you won’t have to move. Conveniently, we got to the church before I had much of a chance to answer. I’m still thinking this one through, but it’s a fun conversation.
“Sure, babe, what’s up?”
“Well, I’m not sure I understand something.”
Great, I think, how deep will this get. There is SO MUCH about the Bible that I don’t understand!!! “Okay, what don’t you understand?”
“I don’t understand what it means when it says that the last will be first and the first will be last.”
Heh, that’s a good thing to not understand. I explained to her that when Jesus said that, he was promoting an attitude of humility and talking to the religious leaders of the day. I explained to her that the way we live, in the way of Christ, will be used as evidence in our judgment. (We’ve talked about judgment and what that means many times before.)
GREAT ANSWER, BRAD!!! WHOOHOO!!! Dodged that bullet. Sure, it opens the door for more questions, but she’ll stew on that for a while. Not exactly what I think that verse means, but it was a quick answer without a Bible right in front of me.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Am I last?”
Oh, boy. How do I answer this one? Think….think…..think…..
“Well, I think that being last is something that you have to work toward, but it’s not even that, being last is just something that you are. You don’t actually work to BECOME last. You work to become what God wants you to be, working to form yourself to be more Christlike. And if you are truly living in the way of Christ, then you will meet whatever God’s requirements are for being ‘last’. But, babe, this isn’t something you need to really worry about.”
She was quiet for a minute or two.
“What if there are a lot of people, all trying to be last? How do I get to be more last than them?”
My first thought was to say, hope that there are only 3 people, and then aim for #2. That way, you won’t have to move. Conveniently, we got to the church before I had much of a chance to answer. I’m still thinking this one through, but it’s a fun conversation.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
God Interferes with The World Series of Poker
Jerry Yang won 8+ Million dollars at the World Series of Poker in Vegas, yesterday. In a quote from him on the Sports Illustrated website, he talks about coming from behind (short stack) and winning the whole tournament.
"I've seen the miracles of God with my own eyes," Yang said. "I did a lot of bluffing, also."
Wow, his winning was a full blown, divine intervention, miracle!!!!
**BRAD FIRMLY PLACES TONGUE IN CHEEK**
I'm sure that the final three players at the final table were all in a battle of Faith! Prayers were flying fast and hard as the turn came down, then the river. And Yang's faith came out on top!!!
Now, I want to go to Vegas for the WSoP because I'm SURE that God would be on my side, wouldn't he?
**BRAD REMOVES TONGUE FROM CHEEK**
Just thought it was funny.
"I've seen the miracles of God with my own eyes," Yang said. "I did a lot of bluffing, also."
Wow, his winning was a full blown, divine intervention, miracle!!!!
**BRAD FIRMLY PLACES TONGUE IN CHEEK**
I'm sure that the final three players at the final table were all in a battle of Faith! Prayers were flying fast and hard as the turn came down, then the river. And Yang's faith came out on top!!!
Now, I want to go to Vegas for the WSoP because I'm SURE that God would be on my side, wouldn't he?
**BRAD REMOVES TONGUE FROM CHEEK**
Just thought it was funny.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Can I get a little open conversation in here?
Probably the longest blog of mine to date.
As I stumble along through my faith journey, finding myself more and more drawn into some sort of “emergent” thought pattern, I balance everything I find against the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. (Scripture, Tradition, Experience, and Reason) Yep, that is certainly a human way of looking at things; open to interpretation, open to error, and also open to leading by the Holy Spirit.
To say that one is part of the Emergent conversation is indicative of a number of things. One, one is entering into a gray area of belief sets. So many different questions arise over what does “emergent” mean. What is one “emerging” from? What is one “emerging” to? And the absolute worst question is “What are the articles of faith of the Emergent movement?” The “authorities” in what is considered to be the public face of the Emergent movement are extremely hesitant to lay down a checklist of “we believe this” because it’s not about laying out a new orthodoxy, or even correcting an existing orthodoxy. It’s about conversing about what is already orthodox, and embracing it in a 21st century context.
The greater modern Christian community has some concerns when the words “Emergent Church” are uttered, mostly because they believe (or say they do) that people in the emergent conversation are avoiding the Truth. So, what does that mean? Simple. I perceive that those who are most heavily against the conversation are of the opinion that orthodoxy (right-thinking) is already nailed, and that the Truth is already known. Therefore, anyone who questions anything is immediately labeled a heretic.
(For an interesting read, hit Ken Silva’s blog at http://www.apprising.org/. Just a few examples of those who are being labeled heretical……Rick Warren…..Brian McLaren…..T.D. Jakes…..Joel Olsteen…..Dan Kimball…..Tony Jones….The entire Roman Catholic Church….Erwin McManus….Rob Bell….Doug Pagitt….and the list goes on. Sad thing, really, I used to respect Ken Silva, from my activities with Promise Keepers. Unfortunately, I can’t say that I do anymore. HOWEVER, I do read his blog as a counterpoint to other things that I read. So, there is some element of respect that remains.)
I am actively in conversations with people from all different lines of faith…..Nazarene, Baptist, Presbyterian, Catholic, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Christian (Stone-Campbell, but non-denominational) as well as some that are recognized as “leaders” in the movement that is the Emergent conversation - not claiming affiliation with any particular denomination. And I love my conversations. I cherish my conversations. These are my friends, they are intelligent, they are spiritual, they are religious, and they are journeying on the road of faith just like I am.
Dan Kimball, an author, pastor, and recognized name in Emerging church circles wrote this on his blog in December of last year in response to an open letter sent out by a well known radio personality (who he doesn’t name):
“All the emerging churches I know believe in the inspiration of the Bible, the Trinity, the atonement, the bodily resurrection, and salvation in Jesus alone. You go on their web sites and you quite often see the Apostle's Creed or Nicene Creed listed. So to say emerging churches don't have doctrines is very incorrect. There may be an isolated few that don't, but the majority do. Put this to the test and go look on some emerging church web sites, and you will easily see why he is wrong with this. In my experience I don't know of any emerging church who does not believe that God has revealed truth for us to know. I don't know of any emerging church who doesn't teach doctrines in their church. The stereotype that most emerging churches do not believe in truth, or that emerging churches don't hold any doctrinal positions is plainly a myth and an urban legend.”
http://www.dankimball.com/vintage_faith/2006/12/saddened_by_joh.html
So, earlier, I mentioned that there is a belief that Truth (with a capital T) is already known. Some would say this is absolute truth. I honestly can’t argue with that. However, if you ask Christians what absolute truth is, you will often get different answers, with scripture to back it up. For instance, some believe that the initial evidence of the infilling of the Holy Spirit is speaking in tongues. Some believe that the sacrament baptism is a means of salvation. Some believe that during the sacrament of the Eucharist, the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ. Some believe that there are two different crisis times in one’s life, one when they recognize their need for Christ and begin on a path to holiness, only to then have a second crisis at which they truly become holy and unable to sin. Some believe you just have to believe in Christ to be saved. Some believe there are other things you need to do as well. Some believe you are justified through faith, others believe it is through works.
On Friday, July 13th, 2007, Tony Jones, the director of Emergent Village (http://www.emergentvillage.com/) was on the Al Mohler radio show. Mohler is a well known Southern Baptist radio show host. I have never listened to his show, and downloaded this one off the internet. Mohler wasn’t even hosting, it was Russell Moore who had the reins. When asked about the “Emergent” movement’s view on orthodoxy, truth, and reformative thought, Jones mentioned that 50 years ago the Southern Baptist convention believed that interracial marriage was sinful, but then on Wednesday, July 11th, Mohler had said on his show that it was now recognized as being “fine” because all people are created equal, etc., etc. Well, Moore went nuts on this one. Jones’ point was that Biblical interpretation and practice evolves over time as the Holy Spirit leads us into all truth. He was not condemning the Southern Baptist Convention. He was simply making a point. Unfortunately, he did it in a way that was questionably inflammatory. **GRIN**
So, is there absolute truth? ABSOLUTELY!!! And I don’t just say that to be funny. As Kimball mentions in his post I linked above, most churches that claim to be emergent have articles of faith showing beliefs mostly in the Apostles and Nicean creeds. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostles%27_Creed and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed respectively.) Even the creation, justification, ratification and context of these well known creeds have subjectively been altered by different groups at different times!!!! But, I think the point still holds true. There is truth that cannot be denied.
I won’t try and get into everything I believe here, simply because I don’t have the time. However, key elements:
- Christ (son of God, existence outside of time – not a created being, fully human, fully divine, died physically, rose again physically, and so on.)
- All mankind are sinners in need of a savior
- Jesus is the only way to God
- Truth is existent throughout God’s creation and should point us to Him. (Yep, science Rocks)
- God gives us grace (unmerited favor) and it is something we have to accept. It is freely given, but must be a willful acceptance on our part.
- Jesus will return
- There will be judgment, and that judgment will lead either to eternal separation (Hell) or eternal communion (Heaven) with God.
- There can be no relativism (what’s true for me is also true for you, and vice-versa)
Okay, I can’t write anymore right now. I’ve already got a headache.
I’ll boil it down…
This is supposed to be a conversation. Both sides need to be open to the other. Both sides need to be able to discuss. What we have now is not a conversation, but a group of people asking questions and giving a viewpoint, and a group of people saying, “You’re wrong”. I see more love and unity coming from the Emergent conversation than I do in the mainstream church. Maybe it’s just me. I want to talk…CONVERSE WITH ME!!!!
[yes, I edited this to correct it....see the comments and you'll understand. BWS 7/18/07]
Brad
As I stumble along through my faith journey, finding myself more and more drawn into some sort of “emergent” thought pattern, I balance everything I find against the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. (Scripture, Tradition, Experience, and Reason) Yep, that is certainly a human way of looking at things; open to interpretation, open to error, and also open to leading by the Holy Spirit.
To say that one is part of the Emergent conversation is indicative of a number of things. One, one is entering into a gray area of belief sets. So many different questions arise over what does “emergent” mean. What is one “emerging” from? What is one “emerging” to? And the absolute worst question is “What are the articles of faith of the Emergent movement?” The “authorities” in what is considered to be the public face of the Emergent movement are extremely hesitant to lay down a checklist of “we believe this” because it’s not about laying out a new orthodoxy, or even correcting an existing orthodoxy. It’s about conversing about what is already orthodox, and embracing it in a 21st century context.
The greater modern Christian community has some concerns when the words “Emergent Church” are uttered, mostly because they believe (or say they do) that people in the emergent conversation are avoiding the Truth. So, what does that mean? Simple. I perceive that those who are most heavily against the conversation are of the opinion that orthodoxy (right-thinking) is already nailed, and that the Truth is already known. Therefore, anyone who questions anything is immediately labeled a heretic.
(For an interesting read, hit Ken Silva’s blog at http://www.apprising.org/. Just a few examples of those who are being labeled heretical……Rick Warren…..Brian McLaren…..T.D. Jakes…..Joel Olsteen…..Dan Kimball…..Tony Jones….The entire Roman Catholic Church….Erwin McManus….Rob Bell….Doug Pagitt….and the list goes on. Sad thing, really, I used to respect Ken Silva, from my activities with Promise Keepers. Unfortunately, I can’t say that I do anymore. HOWEVER, I do read his blog as a counterpoint to other things that I read. So, there is some element of respect that remains.)
I am actively in conversations with people from all different lines of faith…..Nazarene, Baptist, Presbyterian, Catholic, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Christian (Stone-Campbell, but non-denominational) as well as some that are recognized as “leaders” in the movement that is the Emergent conversation - not claiming affiliation with any particular denomination. And I love my conversations. I cherish my conversations. These are my friends, they are intelligent, they are spiritual, they are religious, and they are journeying on the road of faith just like I am.
Dan Kimball, an author, pastor, and recognized name in Emerging church circles wrote this on his blog in December of last year in response to an open letter sent out by a well known radio personality (who he doesn’t name):
“All the emerging churches I know believe in the inspiration of the Bible, the Trinity, the atonement, the bodily resurrection, and salvation in Jesus alone. You go on their web sites and you quite often see the Apostle's Creed or Nicene Creed listed. So to say emerging churches don't have doctrines is very incorrect. There may be an isolated few that don't, but the majority do. Put this to the test and go look on some emerging church web sites, and you will easily see why he is wrong with this. In my experience I don't know of any emerging church who does not believe that God has revealed truth for us to know. I don't know of any emerging church who doesn't teach doctrines in their church. The stereotype that most emerging churches do not believe in truth, or that emerging churches don't hold any doctrinal positions is plainly a myth and an urban legend.”
http://www.dankimball.com/vintage_faith/2006/12/saddened_by_joh.html
So, earlier, I mentioned that there is a belief that Truth (with a capital T) is already known. Some would say this is absolute truth. I honestly can’t argue with that. However, if you ask Christians what absolute truth is, you will often get different answers, with scripture to back it up. For instance, some believe that the initial evidence of the infilling of the Holy Spirit is speaking in tongues. Some believe that the sacrament baptism is a means of salvation. Some believe that during the sacrament of the Eucharist, the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ. Some believe that there are two different crisis times in one’s life, one when they recognize their need for Christ and begin on a path to holiness, only to then have a second crisis at which they truly become holy and unable to sin. Some believe you just have to believe in Christ to be saved. Some believe there are other things you need to do as well. Some believe you are justified through faith, others believe it is through works.
On Friday, July 13th, 2007, Tony Jones, the director of Emergent Village (http://www.emergentvillage.com/) was on the Al Mohler radio show. Mohler is a well known Southern Baptist radio show host. I have never listened to his show, and downloaded this one off the internet. Mohler wasn’t even hosting, it was Russell Moore who had the reins. When asked about the “Emergent” movement’s view on orthodoxy, truth, and reformative thought, Jones mentioned that 50 years ago the Southern Baptist convention believed that interracial marriage was sinful, but then on Wednesday, July 11th, Mohler had said on his show that it was now recognized as being “fine” because all people are created equal, etc., etc. Well, Moore went nuts on this one. Jones’ point was that Biblical interpretation and practice evolves over time as the Holy Spirit leads us into all truth. He was not condemning the Southern Baptist Convention. He was simply making a point. Unfortunately, he did it in a way that was questionably inflammatory. **GRIN**
So, is there absolute truth? ABSOLUTELY!!! And I don’t just say that to be funny. As Kimball mentions in his post I linked above, most churches that claim to be emergent have articles of faith showing beliefs mostly in the Apostles and Nicean creeds. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostles%27_Creed and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed respectively.) Even the creation, justification, ratification and context of these well known creeds have subjectively been altered by different groups at different times!!!! But, I think the point still holds true. There is truth that cannot be denied.
I won’t try and get into everything I believe here, simply because I don’t have the time. However, key elements:
- Christ (son of God, existence outside of time – not a created being, fully human, fully divine, died physically, rose again physically, and so on.)
- All mankind are sinners in need of a savior
- Jesus is the only way to God
- Truth is existent throughout God’s creation and should point us to Him. (Yep, science Rocks)
- God gives us grace (unmerited favor) and it is something we have to accept. It is freely given, but must be a willful acceptance on our part.
- Jesus will return
- There will be judgment, and that judgment will lead either to eternal separation (Hell) or eternal communion (Heaven) with God.
- There can be no relativism (what’s true for me is also true for you, and vice-versa)
Okay, I can’t write anymore right now. I’ve already got a headache.
I’ll boil it down…
This is supposed to be a conversation. Both sides need to be open to the other. Both sides need to be able to discuss. What we have now is not a conversation, but a group of people asking questions and giving a viewpoint, and a group of people saying, “You’re wrong”. I see more love and unity coming from the Emergent conversation than I do in the mainstream church. Maybe it’s just me. I want to talk…CONVERSE WITH ME!!!!
[yes, I edited this to correct it....see the comments and you'll understand. BWS 7/18/07]
Brad
Monday, June 11, 2007
Brian McLaren on Power and Justice
Opinions? Some criticism is that this relates to building the Kingdom of Man instead of the Kingdom of God. Not sure I'd go that far.
Brad
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Community
Okay, time to get this blogging thing started. The conversation must continue....or start...or whatever.
Over the last number of months, my wife and I have been considering the concept of "community" in the church setting. More than that, we've been discussing what draws people TO a community. I've been reading (and re-reading) a number of books on Christian community. Naturally there are the classics (Life Together - Bonhoeffer, etc.), but there are also some new books, like Joe Myer's "Organic Community" (which is a bit extreme in spots, but the points are made well.)
Last week, I spent two days at a conference for work. I serve on a "Partner Advisory Council" meeting (PAC) for Microsoft. For the past three years, I have been on that PAC with the same guys (and one lady who is a sweetheart), and it has become a quarterly meeting that we really look forward to. We have a common goal -- to improve the quality and solution set in a particular collection of Microsoft products. We have a common background -- mostly Enterprise Systems Integrators. We only meet quarterly, but most of the 25 guys on the PAC have become very close friends. We keep in touch via e-mail, and when we are in the same town (whether for an event, a business trip, etc.) we try and gather for a meal. As I was driving home on Wednesday night, it struck me that I am in community with these people. More than that, it is a community in which I can say what is on my mind. I can be me. I can argue without disresepcting. I can laugh. Moreover, I can accept that others in the group have significant things to offer.
So, what are most small group ministries in churches missing? (Including the small groups ministry at my own church) Why do I look forward to meeting with the PAC more than my weekly small group? I don't claim to have an answer to this....I just claim to be thinking about it. **GRIN**
First and foremost, the PAC meeting is not forced intimacy. When I was brought in, I was not told, "These are your family, and you will share intimate thoughts with them because they can be trusted. " (I'm not saying that's how it was in our church small group, but that's sure the intention.) With the PAC, I was placed in an environment that "enabled" intimacy. For two days a quarter, we sit in a locked room (well, not LOCKED locked, but I think the point is made) and discuss our businesses, our experiences, and get some teaching/training/marketing hype along the way. We share meals together. We get various gifts/trinkets for serving on the PAC, usually with an MS logo and the name of our PAC. Bags, backpacks, jackets, etc. We do social events together...like sushi bars, or seeing a show -- something completely unrelated to our businesses or to the PAC itself.
Community happens.
I do not believe that there is a recipe for community. But, I also don't think that getting together once a week, and going through some silly fill-in-the-blank workbook and talking pat answers about life's questions is a way of doing it either. I want meat in my relationships. I want to be able to say, "Hey, this is what I'm learning. This is how I'm growing. This is what I'm really struggling with.", and I want to have people in the group actually DISCUSS it with me. Instead of saying, "Okay, moving on to the next topic."
What are your thoughts? What are the keys to community that you have found?
Over the last number of months, my wife and I have been considering the concept of "community" in the church setting. More than that, we've been discussing what draws people TO a community. I've been reading (and re-reading) a number of books on Christian community. Naturally there are the classics (Life Together - Bonhoeffer, etc.), but there are also some new books, like Joe Myer's "Organic Community" (which is a bit extreme in spots, but the points are made well.)
Last week, I spent two days at a conference for work. I serve on a "Partner Advisory Council" meeting (PAC) for Microsoft. For the past three years, I have been on that PAC with the same guys (and one lady who is a sweetheart), and it has become a quarterly meeting that we really look forward to. We have a common goal -- to improve the quality and solution set in a particular collection of Microsoft products. We have a common background -- mostly Enterprise Systems Integrators. We only meet quarterly, but most of the 25 guys on the PAC have become very close friends. We keep in touch via e-mail, and when we are in the same town (whether for an event, a business trip, etc.) we try and gather for a meal. As I was driving home on Wednesday night, it struck me that I am in community with these people. More than that, it is a community in which I can say what is on my mind. I can be me. I can argue without disresepcting. I can laugh. Moreover, I can accept that others in the group have significant things to offer.
So, what are most small group ministries in churches missing? (Including the small groups ministry at my own church) Why do I look forward to meeting with the PAC more than my weekly small group? I don't claim to have an answer to this....I just claim to be thinking about it. **GRIN**
First and foremost, the PAC meeting is not forced intimacy. When I was brought in, I was not told, "These are your family, and you will share intimate thoughts with them because they can be trusted. " (I'm not saying that's how it was in our church small group, but that's sure the intention.) With the PAC, I was placed in an environment that "enabled" intimacy. For two days a quarter, we sit in a locked room (well, not LOCKED locked, but I think the point is made) and discuss our businesses, our experiences, and get some teaching/training/marketing hype along the way. We share meals together. We get various gifts/trinkets for serving on the PAC, usually with an MS logo and the name of our PAC. Bags, backpacks, jackets, etc. We do social events together...like sushi bars, or seeing a show -- something completely unrelated to our businesses or to the PAC itself.
Community happens.
I do not believe that there is a recipe for community. But, I also don't think that getting together once a week, and going through some silly fill-in-the-blank workbook and talking pat answers about life's questions is a way of doing it either. I want meat in my relationships. I want to be able to say, "Hey, this is what I'm learning. This is how I'm growing. This is what I'm really struggling with.", and I want to have people in the group actually DISCUSS it with me. Instead of saying, "Okay, moving on to the next topic."
What are your thoughts? What are the keys to community that you have found?
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Liberation Theology: A survey
Liberation theology is a theology that arose in Latin America as a response to the social and political regimes that are still present today. Its primary task is to do theology and practice its implications through the eyes of the poor. A common phrase that is used in liberation theology: a preferential option for the poor, could be their motto. An analysis of liberation theology can show a wide range of general practices and beliefs that could very well benefit theological study today. In this essay, we will examine the origin, task, and theories of liberation theology to bring new awareness of what it means to be a liberating force to our fellow man.
The struggles that have occurred in Latin America go back as far as the 16th century during the “age of exploration.” The colonization that took place created economic, social, political, and cultural structures that citizens of these countries have been trapped in ever since. What was born in the centuries to follow was an ever increasing oppression of the poor and dramatic distinction between them and the “elite.”
Although formal liberation theology did not emerge until the 1960’s, its roots are said to date back to the Spaniards conquest of the new land, specifically the Dominican activism which called people to treat the Indians as humans instead of as barbaric slaves.
Spain’s first policy toward the Indians, called encomienda, granted the Spanish colonists a number of Indians, who were supposed to toil in the mines and on the plantations of their captors. For their trouble the Indians received protection and instruction in the ‘holy faith.’ Since the Indians were guilty of gross crimes such as human sacrifice and idolatry, the Spanish felt duty-bound to stop these barbarities (Shelly, 284).
Bartholomew de Las Casas, originally one of the conquistadores, had a spiritual experience after reading a passage in Sirach when he was in his mid-thirties that led him to believe that he and the other conquistadores were wrong in their actions. He began to petition the king of Spain for action to be taken against the mistreatment of the Indians. “Thanks in part to his appeals, Charles V, in 1542, issued a series of new laws, The Laws of the Indies, which softened the severity of the encomienda system and established the principle that Indians had human rights too” (Shelly, 285). However, even with the decree issued by Charles, the mistreatment and exploitation continued.
Latin America eventually “broke away from Spain and Portugal. The independence movement was largely the work of the local elites, who were motivated not only by nationalism but by a desire to be free to trade directly with the new center of world power, Great Britain” (Berryman, 11). Though the poor fought in the war for independence, they were not to benefit from its outcome. This struggle had huge ramifications for the Catholic Church which saw a mass departure of clergy from countries within Latin America which led to the dependence from outside resources to try and fill the void.
“The church came to be a bastion of support for the European populations which held and still hold the land and economic power. In some countries two per cent of the people own ninety per cent of the land. The question of social justice was muffled by the cultural captivity of the hierarchy” (Mursell, 324). Between 1900 and 1950, Catholic Action movements supported awareness of the unfair social structure and in 1955 the first plenary meeting of CELAM (Latin American Bishops Conference) bishops from all over Latin America came together to discuss concerns within the institution in addition to recognizing the growing social problems within the country. Some of these bishops along with the local priests and sisters began to work with peasants, some even went as far as practicing solidarity by moving into the rural areas and living their life with the poor. The continual class struggle along with the implications of Vatican II spawned the second council of CELAM in which Gustavo Gutierrez first used the term “theology of liberation” as set forth in the Medellin Document of Peace.
Liberationists practice theology by starting at the view point of the poor. To a liberationist, an aspect of God’s reconciliation of the world through Christ was the liberation of the oppressed. Luke 4:18-19 records the reading of a passage in Isaiah from Jesus in the synagogue at Nazareth near the beginning of his ministry. It says: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Where many theologians will interpret this passage to mean spiritual oppression, blindness, and captivity, liberation theologians interpret it to also include physical oppression, blindness, and captivity.
Liberationists believe that God favors the poor and so we ought to have preferential treatment towards them as well. Within the Catholic church in Latin America, there began a grass roots movement for opting for the poor. This simply means that the clergy and sisters “have made an option to go to the poor and engage them in a reinterpretation of their own religious tradition in a way that is more biblically based and gives them a transformative rather than a fatalistic stance toward the world” (Berryman, 42). The reason this was so radical was that up to this point the church had tended to tailor their services toward the “elite” and inadvertently (or advertently) supported the very system that oppressed the poor.
In liberation theology, “rather than assume a predetermined history…theologians believe that humans abide by free will and are responsible to work with God to create a just and equitable world” (Stenberg). In this light, instead of working towards the kingdom of heaven as though it were only a place to be found in the new or recreated world, they see it as working towards a kingdom that has, at least partially, come; “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” In other words, liberation is not only meant as a reward in heaven, but as a possibility here on earth.
One of the primary tasks of liberation theologians is the evangelization of their nation. For many of the clergy this process of evangelism might mean more of a re-evangelization. This task of evangelism is the means of which to not only seek and save the lost but to bring good news and hope to the Christians. “The good news is that God hears the cry of the poor and is with them in their suffering and struggle” (Berryman, 41).
While the term “preferential option for the poor” and the reasoning that God favors the poor make it seem as though he disfavors the rich, we must understand the biblical principles that allow them to make this claim. In Matthew 25, a parable is found in which Christ speaks of the final judgment where he will sift the sheep from the goats. To those he calls righteous he gives the reason that they had fed him when he was hungry, clothed him when he was naked, gave him drink when he was thirsty, cared for him when he was sick, and visited him while he was imprisoned (vv 37-39). When he was asked when they had done all of these things, Christ responded “Whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done for me” (v 40). It is in this light that they say that God has preference for the poor, meaning that he has called us to care for the “least of these.” In Old Testament passages, God speaks through the prophets of the judgment on those who act unjustly towards others. In Micah, we are told that God requires us “…to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (6:8).
“Liberation theology calls Christians from all social classes to enact the vision of the gospels in order to end oppressive class struggles” (Stenberg). What we must understand about the context of liberation theology that few Westerners understand is the seriousness in which the injustices are inflicted. As theologians rose up in Latin America, they began to ask questions from a Latin American perspective as opposed to a European vantage point. Westerners struggled to defend the relevancy of theology and the credibility of Christianity in light of the Enlightenment, the age of progress, and the age of self and the questions each of these raised. “While Latin Americans can understand such questions, their basic concerns are different. Their question is not so much whether one can believe what Christianity affirms, but rather what relevance Christianity has in the struggle for a more just world. Gutierrez defines theology as ‘critical reflection on praxis in the light of the word of God’” (Berryman, 26).
While there is considerable attention drawn to the freeing of the oppressed, it is important to note that the “liberation” they speak of is two fold. The liberating process is not one of the reversal of roles where the oppressed then become the oppressors (e.g. what happened as a result of the French Revolution). The end goal of liberation theology is to do all that one can to create a just and equitable world; this would be freeing the oppressed from the oppressors and the liberation of the oppressors from their dominating actions thus bringing the whole of the community into closer relations with God and with others.
One of the criticisms likely to be heard from Westerners is that Christ never intended to free the physically oppressed. Much in the gospels denotes instructions on how to persevere in the face of persecution not how to become liberated from oppression. While the claim that Jesus never sought to free the Jews from the oppression of Romans is correct, it is not wrong to speak of God calling men and women in history to stand up against oppression. Examples are found throughout history: slavery, the holocaust, racial prejudice, women’s liberation, etc.
Latino theologians are quick to point out that these structures of injustice are structural or situational sins. Many Westerners, as a result of the philosophical and cultural developments in the last 500 years, have slowly pushed the concept of community out in the margins so that now their faith is a matter a personal choice and does not necessarily affect anyone else. We see this carry over into things such as sin; sin is a transgression of the law that breaks communion between me and God. Though my sin might have been against someone else, the primary offense is to God.
Liberation theologians, though they do not deny the personal element of sin, understand that sin is present in man-made structures and systems. The bishops who met in Pueblo in 1979 said: “‘We see the growing gap between rich and poor as a scandal and contradiction to Christian existence. The luxury of a few becomes an insult to the wretched poverty of the vast masses…’ They spoke of this as a ‘situation of social sinfulness’ and as a ‘grave structural conflict’” (Berryman, 43). To look at sin as only affecting my personal relationship with God is to deny the relational element of sin.
Richard M. Gula, in an essay entitled Understanding Sin Today states:
We all know that we violate the ecological balance of nature when we put toxins into our air and water or throw hamburger foil wrappers out the car window. We violate our moral ecology when we create discord, dissension, fear, mistrust and alienation in the web of life’s relationships…Social sin describes the human-made structures when they offend human dignity by causing people to suffer oppression, exploitation or marginalization. These include educational systems, housing policies, health-care systems, employment policies, and market economy.
What makes social sin so difficult to recognize is the fact that it exists in social and political systems that we assume work together for the good of the community. In light of the abolitionist movements of the United States, (e.g. slavery, racial discrimination, women’s rights, etc) most of us would say that there are “evil” social structures that need to be done away with. Liberation theologians are simply applying this same mentality to the current situation found in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, but approaching the methodology in a way that is relevant to their situation.
Another major criticisms raised against liberation theology is its use of socialism as a solution to the persisting problem of class struggle. However, the understanding that most theologians hold in respect to the use of socialism and Marxist analysis do not necessarily make them socialists or Marxists. Juan Luis Segundo, in an essay written in 1974 states: “By ‘socialism’ I do not mean a complete, long-term social project-hence one that is endowed with a particular ideology or philosophy. I simply mean a political regime in which the ownership of the means of production is taken away from individuals and handed over to higher institutions whose main concern is the common good” (Berryman, 91). Most liberation theologians are not looking at socialism as a permanent means to an end. Instead they are looking at it as a means to liberation from the national dependency on outside capital so that they can redevelop themselves autonomously.
Another criticism heard is that liberation theology is not really theology at all but a set of Christian ethics due to the emphasis placed on praxis. However, there are many protestant and Catholic theologians who are do not necessarily practice liberation theology but will affirm it is theology in that it is a systematic approach to understanding God, creation, Jesus, sin, etc. Where liberation theology differs from others is that it does not necessarily begin with the intellect but with experience. This is different from the more modern understanding of experience theology in that it moves in a circular patter from experience to theology and back to experience. It is “faith seeking understanding” in the cultural experience that persons in the third world find themselves in.
Overall, the aim of liberation theology is placed on looking at the bible, God, and the world through the eyes of the poor. It is a call to people to practice solidarity with the poor and struggle along side them in an attempt to better the situation that they are in. Though some of the proponents of liberation theology have gone to the extreme of taking up arms, most practitioners follow what is called “relentless persistence”, a nonviolent activism in hopes of stopping the oppressive cycles.
What we, as fellow Christians and Westerners, need to see in liberation theology is the praxis of living in solidarity with the poor and the oppressed. Our responsibility as brothers and sisters is to carry each others burdens, to care for those less fortunate, to seek justice for all. Our individualized ideal of Christianity prevents us from seeing the injustices that surround us in our neighboring countries. I believe without a doubt that those who are our geographical neighbors (meaning literally next door and in our communities) should be served as well, but when we speak of the poor we must understand that typically, the poorest of our poor are wealthier than the richest of most of the peasantry found in third world countries and nations like Latin America. Our materialism has blinded us to the need of others and restricted us in our response to their situations. So often today we consider it all good and well to just throw our dollars towards the mission offering once a month and call it good. We need to recapture the understanding of living frugally so that we can give…not only with our money but with our time and our life. We must return to the understanding of what it means to live in solidarity with the poor, to work along side them, and to share our lives with them.
When we become aware of structural evils, we should not be paralyzed by the guilt of self-condemnation, but moved to conversion. Conversion from social sin involves, at one level, changing our own lifestyle in ways that will help reform society…At another level, conversion from social sin involves examining existing regulations and practices, reforming those that offend human dignity (Gula).
Works Cited:
Berryman, Phillip. Liberation Theology: The Essential Facts About the Revolutionary Movement in Latin America and Beyond. (New York: Pantheon Books; 1987)
Shelly, Bruce L. Church History in Plain Language, Updated 2nd Edition. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson; 1995)
Gula, Richard M. “Understanding Sin Today”. Catholic Update (2004). August 25, 2006
Mursell, Gordon gen. ed. The Story of Christian Spirituality. (Minneapolis: First Fortress Press; 2001)
Stenberg, Sheri. “Liberation Theology and Liberatory Pedagogies: Renewing the Dialog” College English; Jan 2006; 68, 3; Wilson Education Abstracts. ProQuest. August 30, 2006
Other Works Consulted:
Ferm, Dean William. Third World Liberation Theologies. (Maryknoll: Orbis Books; 1986)
McManus, Phillip and Gerald Schlabach. Relentless Persistence: Nonviolent Action in Latin America. (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers; 1991)
The struggles that have occurred in Latin America go back as far as the 16th century during the “age of exploration.” The colonization that took place created economic, social, political, and cultural structures that citizens of these countries have been trapped in ever since. What was born in the centuries to follow was an ever increasing oppression of the poor and dramatic distinction between them and the “elite.”
Although formal liberation theology did not emerge until the 1960’s, its roots are said to date back to the Spaniards conquest of the new land, specifically the Dominican activism which called people to treat the Indians as humans instead of as barbaric slaves.
Spain’s first policy toward the Indians, called encomienda, granted the Spanish colonists a number of Indians, who were supposed to toil in the mines and on the plantations of their captors. For their trouble the Indians received protection and instruction in the ‘holy faith.’ Since the Indians were guilty of gross crimes such as human sacrifice and idolatry, the Spanish felt duty-bound to stop these barbarities (Shelly, 284).
Bartholomew de Las Casas, originally one of the conquistadores, had a spiritual experience after reading a passage in Sirach when he was in his mid-thirties that led him to believe that he and the other conquistadores were wrong in their actions. He began to petition the king of Spain for action to be taken against the mistreatment of the Indians. “Thanks in part to his appeals, Charles V, in 1542, issued a series of new laws, The Laws of the Indies, which softened the severity of the encomienda system and established the principle that Indians had human rights too” (Shelly, 285). However, even with the decree issued by Charles, the mistreatment and exploitation continued.
Latin America eventually “broke away from Spain and Portugal. The independence movement was largely the work of the local elites, who were motivated not only by nationalism but by a desire to be free to trade directly with the new center of world power, Great Britain” (Berryman, 11). Though the poor fought in the war for independence, they were not to benefit from its outcome. This struggle had huge ramifications for the Catholic Church which saw a mass departure of clergy from countries within Latin America which led to the dependence from outside resources to try and fill the void.
“The church came to be a bastion of support for the European populations which held and still hold the land and economic power. In some countries two per cent of the people own ninety per cent of the land. The question of social justice was muffled by the cultural captivity of the hierarchy” (Mursell, 324). Between 1900 and 1950, Catholic Action movements supported awareness of the unfair social structure and in 1955 the first plenary meeting of CELAM (Latin American Bishops Conference) bishops from all over Latin America came together to discuss concerns within the institution in addition to recognizing the growing social problems within the country. Some of these bishops along with the local priests and sisters began to work with peasants, some even went as far as practicing solidarity by moving into the rural areas and living their life with the poor. The continual class struggle along with the implications of Vatican II spawned the second council of CELAM in which Gustavo Gutierrez first used the term “theology of liberation” as set forth in the Medellin Document of Peace.
Liberationists practice theology by starting at the view point of the poor. To a liberationist, an aspect of God’s reconciliation of the world through Christ was the liberation of the oppressed. Luke 4:18-19 records the reading of a passage in Isaiah from Jesus in the synagogue at Nazareth near the beginning of his ministry. It says: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Where many theologians will interpret this passage to mean spiritual oppression, blindness, and captivity, liberation theologians interpret it to also include physical oppression, blindness, and captivity.
Liberationists believe that God favors the poor and so we ought to have preferential treatment towards them as well. Within the Catholic church in Latin America, there began a grass roots movement for opting for the poor. This simply means that the clergy and sisters “have made an option to go to the poor and engage them in a reinterpretation of their own religious tradition in a way that is more biblically based and gives them a transformative rather than a fatalistic stance toward the world” (Berryman, 42). The reason this was so radical was that up to this point the church had tended to tailor their services toward the “elite” and inadvertently (or advertently) supported the very system that oppressed the poor.
In liberation theology, “rather than assume a predetermined history…theologians believe that humans abide by free will and are responsible to work with God to create a just and equitable world” (Stenberg). In this light, instead of working towards the kingdom of heaven as though it were only a place to be found in the new or recreated world, they see it as working towards a kingdom that has, at least partially, come; “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” In other words, liberation is not only meant as a reward in heaven, but as a possibility here on earth.
One of the primary tasks of liberation theologians is the evangelization of their nation. For many of the clergy this process of evangelism might mean more of a re-evangelization. This task of evangelism is the means of which to not only seek and save the lost but to bring good news and hope to the Christians. “The good news is that God hears the cry of the poor and is with them in their suffering and struggle” (Berryman, 41).
While the term “preferential option for the poor” and the reasoning that God favors the poor make it seem as though he disfavors the rich, we must understand the biblical principles that allow them to make this claim. In Matthew 25, a parable is found in which Christ speaks of the final judgment where he will sift the sheep from the goats. To those he calls righteous he gives the reason that they had fed him when he was hungry, clothed him when he was naked, gave him drink when he was thirsty, cared for him when he was sick, and visited him while he was imprisoned (vv 37-39). When he was asked when they had done all of these things, Christ responded “Whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done for me” (v 40). It is in this light that they say that God has preference for the poor, meaning that he has called us to care for the “least of these.” In Old Testament passages, God speaks through the prophets of the judgment on those who act unjustly towards others. In Micah, we are told that God requires us “…to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (6:8).
“Liberation theology calls Christians from all social classes to enact the vision of the gospels in order to end oppressive class struggles” (Stenberg). What we must understand about the context of liberation theology that few Westerners understand is the seriousness in which the injustices are inflicted. As theologians rose up in Latin America, they began to ask questions from a Latin American perspective as opposed to a European vantage point. Westerners struggled to defend the relevancy of theology and the credibility of Christianity in light of the Enlightenment, the age of progress, and the age of self and the questions each of these raised. “While Latin Americans can understand such questions, their basic concerns are different. Their question is not so much whether one can believe what Christianity affirms, but rather what relevance Christianity has in the struggle for a more just world. Gutierrez defines theology as ‘critical reflection on praxis in the light of the word of God’” (Berryman, 26).
While there is considerable attention drawn to the freeing of the oppressed, it is important to note that the “liberation” they speak of is two fold. The liberating process is not one of the reversal of roles where the oppressed then become the oppressors (e.g. what happened as a result of the French Revolution). The end goal of liberation theology is to do all that one can to create a just and equitable world; this would be freeing the oppressed from the oppressors and the liberation of the oppressors from their dominating actions thus bringing the whole of the community into closer relations with God and with others.
One of the criticisms likely to be heard from Westerners is that Christ never intended to free the physically oppressed. Much in the gospels denotes instructions on how to persevere in the face of persecution not how to become liberated from oppression. While the claim that Jesus never sought to free the Jews from the oppression of Romans is correct, it is not wrong to speak of God calling men and women in history to stand up against oppression. Examples are found throughout history: slavery, the holocaust, racial prejudice, women’s liberation, etc.
Latino theologians are quick to point out that these structures of injustice are structural or situational sins. Many Westerners, as a result of the philosophical and cultural developments in the last 500 years, have slowly pushed the concept of community out in the margins so that now their faith is a matter a personal choice and does not necessarily affect anyone else. We see this carry over into things such as sin; sin is a transgression of the law that breaks communion between me and God. Though my sin might have been against someone else, the primary offense is to God.
Liberation theologians, though they do not deny the personal element of sin, understand that sin is present in man-made structures and systems. The bishops who met in Pueblo in 1979 said: “‘We see the growing gap between rich and poor as a scandal and contradiction to Christian existence. The luxury of a few becomes an insult to the wretched poverty of the vast masses…’ They spoke of this as a ‘situation of social sinfulness’ and as a ‘grave structural conflict’” (Berryman, 43). To look at sin as only affecting my personal relationship with God is to deny the relational element of sin.
Richard M. Gula, in an essay entitled Understanding Sin Today states:
We all know that we violate the ecological balance of nature when we put toxins into our air and water or throw hamburger foil wrappers out the car window. We violate our moral ecology when we create discord, dissension, fear, mistrust and alienation in the web of life’s relationships…Social sin describes the human-made structures when they offend human dignity by causing people to suffer oppression, exploitation or marginalization. These include educational systems, housing policies, health-care systems, employment policies, and market economy.
What makes social sin so difficult to recognize is the fact that it exists in social and political systems that we assume work together for the good of the community. In light of the abolitionist movements of the United States, (e.g. slavery, racial discrimination, women’s rights, etc) most of us would say that there are “evil” social structures that need to be done away with. Liberation theologians are simply applying this same mentality to the current situation found in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, but approaching the methodology in a way that is relevant to their situation.
Another major criticisms raised against liberation theology is its use of socialism as a solution to the persisting problem of class struggle. However, the understanding that most theologians hold in respect to the use of socialism and Marxist analysis do not necessarily make them socialists or Marxists. Juan Luis Segundo, in an essay written in 1974 states: “By ‘socialism’ I do not mean a complete, long-term social project-hence one that is endowed with a particular ideology or philosophy. I simply mean a political regime in which the ownership of the means of production is taken away from individuals and handed over to higher institutions whose main concern is the common good” (Berryman, 91). Most liberation theologians are not looking at socialism as a permanent means to an end. Instead they are looking at it as a means to liberation from the national dependency on outside capital so that they can redevelop themselves autonomously.
Another criticism heard is that liberation theology is not really theology at all but a set of Christian ethics due to the emphasis placed on praxis. However, there are many protestant and Catholic theologians who are do not necessarily practice liberation theology but will affirm it is theology in that it is a systematic approach to understanding God, creation, Jesus, sin, etc. Where liberation theology differs from others is that it does not necessarily begin with the intellect but with experience. This is different from the more modern understanding of experience theology in that it moves in a circular patter from experience to theology and back to experience. It is “faith seeking understanding” in the cultural experience that persons in the third world find themselves in.
Overall, the aim of liberation theology is placed on looking at the bible, God, and the world through the eyes of the poor. It is a call to people to practice solidarity with the poor and struggle along side them in an attempt to better the situation that they are in. Though some of the proponents of liberation theology have gone to the extreme of taking up arms, most practitioners follow what is called “relentless persistence”, a nonviolent activism in hopes of stopping the oppressive cycles.
What we, as fellow Christians and Westerners, need to see in liberation theology is the praxis of living in solidarity with the poor and the oppressed. Our responsibility as brothers and sisters is to carry each others burdens, to care for those less fortunate, to seek justice for all. Our individualized ideal of Christianity prevents us from seeing the injustices that surround us in our neighboring countries. I believe without a doubt that those who are our geographical neighbors (meaning literally next door and in our communities) should be served as well, but when we speak of the poor we must understand that typically, the poorest of our poor are wealthier than the richest of most of the peasantry found in third world countries and nations like Latin America. Our materialism has blinded us to the need of others and restricted us in our response to their situations. So often today we consider it all good and well to just throw our dollars towards the mission offering once a month and call it good. We need to recapture the understanding of living frugally so that we can give…not only with our money but with our time and our life. We must return to the understanding of what it means to live in solidarity with the poor, to work along side them, and to share our lives with them.
When we become aware of structural evils, we should not be paralyzed by the guilt of self-condemnation, but moved to conversion. Conversion from social sin involves, at one level, changing our own lifestyle in ways that will help reform society…At another level, conversion from social sin involves examining existing regulations and practices, reforming those that offend human dignity (Gula).
Works Cited:
Berryman, Phillip. Liberation Theology: The Essential Facts About the Revolutionary Movement in Latin America and Beyond. (New York: Pantheon Books; 1987)
Shelly, Bruce L. Church History in Plain Language, Updated 2nd Edition. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson; 1995)
Gula, Richard M. “Understanding Sin Today”. Catholic Update (2004). August 25, 2006
Mursell, Gordon gen. ed. The Story of Christian Spirituality. (Minneapolis: First Fortress Press; 2001)
Stenberg, Sheri. “Liberation Theology and Liberatory Pedagogies: Renewing the Dialog” College English; Jan 2006; 68, 3; Wilson Education Abstracts. ProQuest. August 30, 2006
Other Works Consulted:
Ferm, Dean William. Third World Liberation Theologies. (Maryknoll: Orbis Books; 1986)
McManus, Phillip and Gerald Schlabach. Relentless Persistence: Nonviolent Action in Latin America. (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers; 1991)
Monday, August 21, 2006
Saturday, August 05, 2006
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