tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44084377041194114732024-03-05T23:51:51.426-06:00AntithesisMatthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408437704119411473.post-74134457625462125762010-05-16T09:28:00.001-05:002010-05-16T09:44:43.736-05:00A Sunday morning hymn and scripture: John 21.15-18, More Love to Thee<sup class="versenum" id="en-NIV-26903"><span style="font-size:100%;">In this passage Jesus calls Peter to return to him, Peter having denied Jesus three times when Jesus had been delivered up to be crucified. Thus, the "love" is in question, it's at the center of the narratival tension. It is not settled. This story paints not a serene picture but a tumultuous one. Similarly, in the hymn below - More Love to Thee, O Christ - note that the phrase "More love to Thee" is not a declaration of great love, but a plea for that love. Very often I do not feel like I love Christ very much but am rather in need of that love. And I'm heading off to worship this morning in such a spirit, to lead worship moreover! "Here now my earnest plea, more love, O Christ, to Thee!" - Blessings, Matthew</span><br /><br />15</sup>When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?"<br /> "Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you."<br /> Jesus said, "Feed my lambs." <p> <sup class="versenum" id="en-NIV-26904">16</sup>Again Jesus said, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me?"<br /> He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you."<br /> Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep." </p><p> <sup class="versenum" id="en-NIV-26905">17</sup> The third time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?"<br /> Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love me?" He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you." </p> Jesus said, "Feed my sheep.<br /><div class="lyrics"> <p>More love to Thee, O Christ, more love to Thee!<br />Hear Thou the prayer I make on bended knee.<br />This is my earnest plea: More love, O Christ, to Thee;<br />More love to Thee, more love to Thee!</p> <p>Once earthly joy I craved, sought peace and rest;<br />Now Thee alone I seek, give what is best.<br />This all my prayer shall be: More love, O Christ to Thee;<br />More love to Thee, more love to Thee!</p> <p>Let sorrow do its work, come grief or pain;<br />Sweet are Thy messengers, sweet their refrain,<br />When they can sing with me: More love, O Christ, to Thee;<br />More love to Thee, more love to Thee!</p> <p>Then shall my latest breath whisper Thy praise;<br />This be the parting cry my heart shall raise;<br />This still its prayer shall be: More love, O Christ to Thee;<br />More love to Thee, more love to Thee!</p> </div>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408437704119411473.post-40118643281571801402010-05-08T20:10:00.002-05:002010-05-08T20:17:07.389-05:00Hebrews 7 - Jesus and MelchizedekThe following sermon, from March 2010, offers a reading of Hebrews 7. I first describe a kind of interpretation strategy from the Rabbis' teaching about how to read the Torah, and then I use that as a possible explanation of what the author of Hebrews might have been doing. My motivation was to try to appreciate the style of argument of Hebrews. Some ancient styles of argument seem not to make "logical" sense to modern ears, but the reason is not that the ancients weren't as smart or logical as we are. I hope this sermon helps readers to appreciate a sophisticated style of ancient argument. Blessings, Matthew<div><br /></div><div><p>Introduction<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>"God bless you brothers and sisters."</p><p> </p><p>In this morning's sermon we will be studying Hebrews 6.19-7.19 and hopefully seeing why we can have confidence that the priesthood of Jesus is superior to the priesthood of the law, as the writer claims in the end of chapter 4 and in chapter 5. </p><p> </p><p>Hebrews, we remember, is a sermon to Jewish Christians spread throughout the Roman Empire at the first dawn of Christianity, when Jews and Gentiles were still figuring out what it meant to follow Christ faithfully and whether the requirements of following Christ were really worth it. And because of the ambiguities and trials involved in learning to follow Christ and the recent memory of their old ways of life, many Christians in this early period were led astray by false teaching or tempted to return to the security of their Jewish ways. This is the situation for the audience of the book of Hebrews. Hebrews is a sermon to Jewish Christians who were facing pressure and maybe even entertaining the idea of abandoning faith in Christ. The preacher is encouraging them that faith in Christ is far superior to the law.</p><p> </p><p>Let's begin by reading the passage for today. </p><p><br /></p><p>I. Comments on rhetoric and argument<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Before we get into analysis of the passage today, do you mind if we take a brief detour to talk about rhetoric and style of argument? It's important throughout the book because the shape of the form really affects the content of the content. But I think it's especially important in chapter 7, and I think it would be worth starting with a few notes on the argument style.</p><p><br /></p><p>I.1 The Jewishness of this book</p><p><br /></p><p>As you read Hebrews, if you know anything about the Old Testament at all, you probably recognize that, hey, this has got to be a writer who is very familiar with Jewish backgrounds and theology and he must be writing to folks who are also familiar with these things. First of all, he's quoting the Old Testament all over the place - which to him, remember, was the whole Bible since there was no New Testament at that point. Second, the whole issue here in Hebrews is comparing traditional forms of Mosaic worship - the law, the priesthood, sacrifices - to worshiping Jesus as the Christ.</p><p><br /></p><p>I.2 History of Talmudic Rules<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>As I was studying for the exhortation this morning I learned a bit about Jewish, and specifically "talmudic," hermeneutics. The Talmud is a record of what the Jewish Rabbis said abou<span style="color:#000000;"><span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">t </span></span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halakha" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" title="Halakha">Jewish law</a><span style="color:#000000;"><span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, </span></span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_ethics" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" title="Jewish ethics">ethics</a><span style="color:#000000;"><span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, custom</span></span></span>s and history. In the Talmud, as part of the Rabbis' teaching, there are rules for how one was supposed to interpret the Bible, and specifically the Torah. Very specific rules to help sort out what are valid and what are invalid interpretations. Now the Talmud wasn't fully collected and put together in writing until sometime 6th century-ish AD, but the content is much older, existing in the form of oral teaching. These rules for interpreting the Bible can be traced to at least the 3rd century, and Hebrews was probably, well we don't really know, late first, early second century? So it's not unreasonable to think that the writer and audiences of the letter Hebrews would have been familiar with what would eventually become Talmudic teaching about how to interpret the Bible.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I.3 Syncretic argument and <i>a fortiori</i><br /></p><p> </p><p>Throughout the letter the preacher has often used a "syncretic" kind of argument. The Greek word (kritikos) for "judgement" and the preposition "with". With <i>syncresis</i>-style rhetoric you take two things and compare them to one another to show how they are similar and then, based on similarities, you can show how one is better than another. So we saw in 1.1-2 and 2.2-3, 3.2-6. More broadly, the writer compares the Israelite's rest to the church's, the levitical high priest to Christ's priesthood and so on. This comparative arguing, specifically, is arguing <i>a fortiori</i> or "from the stronger". For example, if I come home and find that all the chocolates are gone and I know that my wife was the only one home, I'm going to think she ate the chocolates. But <i>how much more</i> if I see chocolate all over her face! (That's never happened by the way.) Similarly, servant - Son; Moses - Jesus in chapter 3.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I.4 Talmudic rule of qal wa chomer<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Given the author's background, his audience and the subject matter (Jewish worship), it makes sense that Hebrews should use a correspondingly Jewish style of argument. In addition to this generic rhetorical <i>syncresis</i>-strategy, here in chapter 7 the writer uses a specific kind of a fortiori argument, one of the Talmudic rules for interpreting the Bible, called in Hebrew "<i>qal wa chomer</i>", or in English "simple to complex." The rule for a <i>qal wa chomer </i>argument is that the conclusion must be contained in the premise. For example, if someone who is 6ft tall can walk beneath a certain doorway, then how much more can someone who is 5ft tall walk beneath the same doorway. This is very important for the passage.</p><p><br /></p><p>II. Finally, we are ready to dig into chapter 7.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>II.1. Chapter 7.1ff: The story of Genesis 14 </p><p><br /></p><p>Lot, kings, gathering army, brings back spoils, tithe to Melchizedek, priest of God most high. Who is this guy Melchizedek? Everybody has a genealogy, but not Melchizedek. And so, as far as we know him, he is without birth and death. Comes out of nowhere and disappears into the same. And yet Abraham - the receiver of the oath! - is blessed by this person, and Abraham gives him a tithe.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>II.2. Superiority of Melchizedekian priesthood.</p><p><br /></p><p>II.2.a. Something greater than Aaron<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Abraham recognizes Melchizedek's greatness over him. Vv 4, 6. Now, <i>a fortiori</i>, Melchizedek has to be greater than Abraham because of the direction of blessing. And, more specifically, <i>qal wa chomer</i>, the entire Levitical priesthood submits to the superiority of the Melchizedekian priesthood because of vv 9-10! So the argument then, so far, is that there is something greater than the Levitical priesthood.</p><p><br /></p><p>II.2.b. Superiority of Melchizedek</p><p><br /></p><p>What makes it specifically Melchizedek that is greater? The obvious answer is that it was Melchizedek who blessed Abraham. But, look at what the preacher points out that makes Melchizedek so special: vs 8, 3. He lives, and as living he is a priest forever! So, (1) there is something greater than the Levitical priesthood, and (2) what is greater is an eternal priest, one who exceeds our limited capabilities and the hopes and dreams we could ever have for our own abilities to be priests for ourselves and atone for our own sins and the sins of our people. He who does this eternally certainly must be greater than we who do this only a little bit and never sufficiently! It is this one who, after the order of Melchizedek, is "King of righteousness and of peace."<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>II.3. Jesus as conclusion of a "qal wa chomer"</p><p><br /></p><p>II.3.a. The coming of a second Melchizedek<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>What reason is there to think that a second Melchizedek would come? Vs 11. The conclusion is contained in the premise, remember. The preacher wants us to see, he's arguing, that Melchizedek actually foreshadows the Messiah. If Abraham, and by extension Levi, submitted to the priesthood of Melchizedek, then this means Levi's priesthood was inferior to Melchizedek's. Moreover, as I just explained, Melchizedek's priesthood is the best possible because it is eternal. But, Levi's priesthood is put into place <i>after</i> Melchizedek's, which must mean that another, greater priesthood will supercede and fulfill our weak one - a priesthood like Melchizedek. The preacher argues to his Jewish audience: "Hey, our worship, our priesthood, our sacrifice are weak and imperfect; they are not eternal. But we know that there is a better priesthood." Of course Melch himself was not a redeemer-Messiah, but he was the contrast which shows us who think we are so powerful and self-sufficient - WE'RE NOT! Melchizedek's superiority over Levi and Levi's coming after Melchizedek implies the coming of a second Melchizedek, <i>qal wa chomer</i>.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>II.3.b. This second Melchizedek as Jesus</p><p><br /></p><p>Yes, there's a priest coming one like Melch, but what reason do we have for believing it was Jesus? We have the same two reasons that made Melchizedek so great to begin with. (1) Jesus does not come from the Levitical line. He is of the tribe of Judah, the kingly tribe of Israel, noting the connecting to Melchizedek being a king-priest. (2) But if that weren't enough, <i>a fortiori</i> "it is even more obvious" (vs 15) that Jesus must be a Melchizedek-ian priest because of the evidence of his indestructible life! He is a priest forever!<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>II.4. Summary</p><p><br /></p><p>So, (vs 18) by ancestry, Melchizedek and Jesus show the weakness of the Levitical priesthood, and, by his eternal life, Jesus gives us an incomparably better hope. By comparing the system of the law to Jesus' own priesthood, we have found that the hope offered through Jesus is incomparably greater. This is the argument of Hebrews 7 to vs 19.</p><p><br /></p><p>III. Superiority of obedience to Christ</p><p><br /></p><p>Remember that the issue in Hebrews is worship as obedience. What kind of worship is necessary for salvation? The law requires sacrifice and perpetual priestly intercession. But Jesus is our eternal priest; therefore our sacrifices are not necessary. What, then, is necessary? Well, what can we learn from Christ's own example? 5.7-10 and 10.5ff. The preacher is encouraging his readers, you don't need to go back to what is familiar to you and to trusting your acts of sacrifice. Obedience is greater than sacrifice. Have faith, be faithful. </p></div>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408437704119411473.post-4007197495666616752010-01-20T10:13:00.003-06:002010-01-20T11:11:49.590-06:00Schleiermacher on Feeling - Speech 2A few days ago I mentioned how Schleiermacher has received a lot of criticism over basing religion not in metaphysics (philosophy/speculation/system) or in morality (codes/duties) but in intuition and feeling. A friend commented that his primary problem with Schleiermacher is that this move toward feeling cuts Schleiermacher's religion off from love because love is more than a feeling and must be connected with morality (i.e. with duty maybe?) In my post I raised the suggestion that a problem with feeling is that it may be too subjective or individualistic. If, however, Schleiermacher is not as individualistic as he has been made out to be by his accusers and if, instead, religion requires relationship then he may be able to respond to the subjectivism objection. Moreover, if religion requires inter-subjectivity (i.e. mutually dependent relationships with others) he might also be able to respond to my friend's concerns that Schleiermacher's religion is without a love that acts. <div><br /></div><div>I re-read Speech 2 again yesterday. On pages 119-120 of Richard Crouter's (Cambridge) translation of <i>On Religion</i> we read the following: <blockquote>As long as the first man was alone with homself and nature, the deity did indeed rule over him; it addressed the man in various ways, but h did not understand it, for he did not answer it; his paradise was beautiful and the stars shone down on him from a beautiful heaven, but the sens for the world did not open up within him; he did not even develop within his soul; but his heart was moved by a longing for a world, and so he gathered before him the animal creation to see if one might perhaps be formed from it. Since the deity recognized that his world would be nothing so long as man was alone, it created for him a partner, and now, for the first time, the world rose before his eyes. <i>In the flesh and bone of his bone he discovered humanity, and in humanity the world</i>. (My emphasis)</blockquote></div><div><br /></div><div>And then on the next page he writes: <blockquote>All our history is contained in this saga ... In order to intuit the world and to have religion, man must first have found humanity, and he finds it only in love and through love.</blockquote></div><div><br /></div><div>The quotations are the bedrock for Schleiermacher for how human beings access and experience the Absolute.* His arguments go on for pages and pages, but it is fair to summarize with the above quotes: Feeling and Intuition ARE NOT subjective, individualistic matters. They are rooted in concrete histories, times and places. "The mind, if it is to produce and sustain religion, must be intuited in a world." So religion is foremost an inter-subjective experience. Moreover, this inter-subjectivity for Schleiermacher entails love. Inter-subjectivity for him, in order for religion to be possible, is by its nature a relationship of love. In other words, true religion depends on love. </div><div><br /></div><div>Now, in order to address my friend's point we need to see that love for Schleiermacher entails some kind of action, morality or duty. It cannot be just a warm, happy feeling. But we're making progress, are we not? Hopefully, I'll be able to address this point soon.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*<i>Writing in his Romantic context, Schleiermacher and friends used terms like the Infinite, the Absolute and so on in attempt to encompass everything that anyone might consider a first principle. So the Absolute and the Infinite for Schleiermacher would have been God, but it would not be fair to substitute them with God because he was not making that identification in the Speeches.</i></div>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408437704119411473.post-55374318029790016682010-01-17T18:36:00.003-06:002010-01-17T19:21:51.505-06:00Relating Religious Studies and TheologyWhat is the place of Theology in a secular liberal arts university? And how can or how should Theology and Religious Studies (i.e. the academic study of religion) be related to one another? These have become important questions to me in the last year as I have moved into the Religious Studies department at Northwestern. I honestly have no good answers to the first question presently. And with regard to the second question, I can only speak from my own case for now. <div><br /></div><div>I am excited to be doing Theology in a Religious Studies setting because Religious Studies allows me to fill my methodological toolkit with methods from across the disciplines: from Political Science to Sociology to History, Anthropology and Philosophy. I can use <i>sociological research methods</i>, for example, to analyze theological evolution of Christian thought around the world today <i>as</i> a form of properly <i>theological systematization</i>. In short, in the globalized Christian church of the 21st century it has seemed to me the Theology needs some of the analytic power of Religious Studies.<div><br /></div><div>It only occurred to me just the other day to wonder about the opposite direction of exchange: Might Religious Studies be able to benefit from Theology's methodological stores? What would this look like? </div></div>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408437704119411473.post-63906801652595628582010-01-15T14:44:00.004-06:002010-01-15T15:22:42.565-06:00Schleiermacher - Too much feeling?<a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schleiermacher/">Friedrich Schleiermacher </a>(1768-1834) was a German theologian and philosopher who associated with German Romantics (like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Schlegel">Schlegel </a>and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novalis">Novalis</a>) early in his career and who later in his career held a university chair in Theology at Berlin for many years. For his work in theology (most notably his <em>Glaubenslehre</em> or <em>The Christian Faith</em>) came to be known as the "Father of Modern Protestant Theology" (or of "Liberal Theology"). In my studies, I am very interested in the ways the Schleiermacher's theological methods (as in his <em>Brief Outline</em>) might be able to address pressing 21st century theological problems.<br /><br />Schleiermacher got a bad reputation in the 20th century figures like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Rosenzweig">Franz Rosenzweig</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Barth">Karl Barth</a> and, later on, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.-G._Gadamer">H. G. Gadamer</a>. They all accussed him of being too subjective, too psychologistic and placing too much trust in individuals' "feeling" of the universe and of the Absolute. However, these accusations are to explicitly tie Schleiermacher to his Romantic period. Interestingly, Schleiermacher studies had been revived around the turn of the 19-20th century by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Dilthey">Wilhelm Dilthey </a>who was also very engaged in reviving Romantic thought in general. Thus, it may be more than coincidental that Schleiermacher was primarily known and treated as a Romantic by Rosenzweig, Barth, etc.<br /><br />To read Schleiermacher and to understand his ideas about feeling in a very individualistic manner may or may not be a fair treatment of his early work (around the years 1799-1803). I am looking into this more closely. But such a reading is definitely inconsistent with his later, theological work. Schleiermacher's hermeneutics (<em>Hermeneutics and Criticism</em>) and theology (<em>The Christian Faith</em>) depend heavily on inter-subjective processes of communal practice and recognition. At least in the later work, the one presupposes the many, individuality is a function of community.<br /><br />I am becoming more and more persuaded by the analyses of contemporary practice theorists like Talal Asad and Pierre Bourdieu that living skillfully (as a citizen, as a religious person and as a Christian) require great discipline and practice, which themselves imply communal settings in which those disciplines/practices make sense. My work with Schleiermacher so far suggests to me that he was actually a pioneer for precisely the kind of practice- and community- based theories of knowledge and sociality currently prevalent in the humanities and social sciences.<br /><br />A real question I am thinking about presently is whether his later work is a departure from youthful infatuations or a critical but careful development of his early positions. If the latter, might this lead us to second-guess how individualistic other Romantics figures were too? Maybe not, but we'll see.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408437704119411473.post-46612257826799730972009-04-20T18:52:00.000-05:002009-04-20T18:53:24.215-05:00New post at http://sensenon.blogspot.com/<a href="Revolutionaries, Barbarians, Radicals and the Rest of Us">Revolutionaries, Barbarians, Radicals and the Rest of Us...</a>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408437704119411473.post-55617285783489946092009-03-25T09:03:00.003-05:002009-03-25T09:56:24.622-05:00"Third World Theology" or just "Theology"?This week I'm writing my thesis. It's got to be done; this is the final hour. If I want to graduate, that is. (Aside: I can't believe three years of MDiv work is already over!) The thesis I am arguing is that theologians in the West increasingly need to take into account the work of theologians in the Global South or Third World for their work to be credible. More simply, Christian theology, if it is to represent Christianity at all, has to present the voice of the world's actual Christians, the majority of whom - as it turns out - live in the Global South. <div><br /></div><div>But in research and writing I was disappointed to find out that I'm not the first person saying this. Others before me have pointed out that as more and more of the world's Christians live in places outside of the West, more and more of the world's Christian leaders will also live in places outside the West. William Dyrness, who will be giving a keynote address at the University of Chicago's 5th student <a href="http://ministryconference.blogspot.com/">ministry conference</a> (see the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=62900520379&ref=ts">facebook page </a>to attend for free!), wrote this in his book <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Learning About Theology from the Third World</span>: </div><div><blockquote>"If theology is to be rooted in the actaul lives of Christians today, increasingly it will have to be from the poor to the poor, in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. And theology done in the West, if it is not to become increasingly provincial, will have to be done in dialogue with the theological leaders in the Third World."</blockquote></div><div>Dyrness is echoing here the words of Andrew Walls who wrote in an article years earlier that if Christian theology is supposed to be the theology of the world's actual Christians then <blockquote>"theology in the Third World is now the only theology worth caring about."</blockquote></div><div>But why am I disappointed that others have written down these observations before me? Pride and vanity? No. I'm bummed out because Dyrness was writing in 1988 and Walls in 1976 - 20 and 30 years ago and nothing has changed! "Third World Theology" is still not "theology proper" but instead a <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">sub</span>-field of totally different disciplines like anthropology or missiology! </div><div><br /></div><div>In the meantime, Christians of the West are becoming increasingly out of touch with the majority of the world's Christians. The Anglican Communion - historically a denomination that prized unity above doctrine! - is now breaking apart. Christians in Africa and Asia are facing and responding to the presence of other world religions in unique ways, way foreign to the Western ideal of "let's just get along." And, to highlight one of the biggest concerns that has animated the theology of the Global South, poverty is a reality of the human person in a way totally foreign to many in the West, and one result of this is very different understandings of private property, consumption, personal identity and social commitment than Western Christians have. </div><div><br /></div><div>I am not suggesting that Christians of the Global South understand theology better (or worse). I am only pointing out that they are more and more becoming the new Christianity - embodying what Christianity is in the 21st century - and they understand Christian faith in some significantly different ways than Western Christians do. All theologians today - and not just those who are "interested in that topic" - must take this into account if it is to have any credibility at all as theology.</div>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408437704119411473.post-12500984786845655942009-03-11T12:04:00.007-05:002009-03-11T12:21:22.390-05:00Lamin Sanneh Interview<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkhGEqhY_UZ8DgJJyU2yriMIdw80QBjuyRgtdPDqWOyGbo07GOG0LFgww9HCNheA_ddSpzXEbw17ngxmLfxZbPjVC0ZgqaUpsvJWQzt2UehVy41IPykWFCkTQCvI7MIamqg5zHKsEPb9I/s1600-h/Sanneh.jpeg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 90px; height: 119px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkhGEqhY_UZ8DgJJyU2yriMIdw80QBjuyRgtdPDqWOyGbo07GOG0LFgww9HCNheA_ddSpzXEbw17ngxmLfxZbPjVC0ZgqaUpsvJWQzt2UehVy41IPykWFCkTQCvI7MIamqg5zHKsEPb9I/s320/Sanneh.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311978444394760882" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family:'Trebuchet MS';font-size:13px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">On February 23</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">rd</span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span><a href="http://www.yale.edu/divinity/faculty/Fac.LSanneh.shtml"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Lamin Sanneh</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> gave an address at the </span><a href="http://divinity.uchicago.edu/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">University of Chicago Divinity School</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> on the topic, “Resisting Mission / Redefining Engagement.”</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Afterward I sat down with Professor Sanneh over lunch to talk about the Div School’s upcoming 5</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">th</span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Annual </span><a href="http://ministryconference.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Ministry Conference</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">He offered some great insights and provocative points that only increase my excitement for the conference on May 1-2.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">One of the organizing questions of the conference is why isn’t there more academic and ministerial collaboration between Christian communities around the world at a time when Christianity is growing so rapidly?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I began my conversation with Professor Sanneh on this topic.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Ministry Conference: The chief question of the ministry conference is, as forms of Christianity are being increasingly indigenized around the world, how do and how ought those affect local Christian practice here in the U.S?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Lamin Sanneh:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Well I think one of the obvious ways - and I’ve seen this in practice - is to establish partnerships between churches in the U.S. and churches in Asia and Africa. And that partnership being, you know, senior pastors in churches in the United States should visit however briefly the partnership counterparts in Asia and Africa.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I think it’s important to sort of break down the domestication of Christianity in America, in the United States, where Christianity is a sort of neighborhood project or community project and it doesn’t really think of itself as being connected with anyone else anywhere else.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Paul called this cultural idolatry.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></blockquote><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And the next stage, I think, is to establish a way in which young people in the church here can engage people in the churches over there.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And the third step may be to establish within mission committees in the United States a program in cross-cultural outreach.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">MC: What would be the theological impetus for that?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What theological understandings say “That’s important” for local churches?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">LS: I</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> think it’s important to sort of break down the domestication of Christianity in America, in the United States, where Christianity is a sort of neighborhood project or community project and it doesn’t really think of itself as being connected with anyone else anywhere else.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Paul called this cultural idolatry.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">That you become very narcissitic, that you become concerned only with yourself, not with your brothers and sisters in the wider community of faith.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">MC:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What would be the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">aim</span></i><span style="font-style: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> or </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">goal</span></i><span style="font-style: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> of those forms of interaction?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">For instance there’s been a rise in popularity of short-term mission trips where the purpose is not even primarily serving the people that you’re going to visit anymore, but rather to have a profound faith experience for yourself.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So, what are the purposes of this kind of interaction?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">LS:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Short term mission, on the positive side, is a sign of the awareness that Christianity is no longer a Western or American monopoly, and therefore the unilateral way of looking at it – we go there to give them faith – has to be given</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">up.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">That’s the positive side.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The negative side, however, is that short term mission may also be just an extension of American individualism.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I’m going there for my own benefit.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Too bad about them, but it’s all about me.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And that doesn’t really break down any walls or any barriers.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It doesn’t really expand what I call the Christian vocabulary of the wider family.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Christianity is the most pluralist and most inclusive religion in all the religions of the world. And yet Christians sometimes behave in a very exclusivist way, individualistic way so that our practices don’t really reflect the broader the wider reality of Christianity so short term missions are both and opportunity and a peril.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">MC: One thing that I have an interest in is theological education in the third world. There is a large need for training pastors, but, because of expense and of time, pastors can’t afford to travel and go to bible college for three years.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So one response has been that a lot of local churches are founding their own bible colleges.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">There are a number of these schools and hundreds of pastors who’ve been trained in these schools.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Do you see any way in which that type of phenomenon does or ought be instructive to Christian practice here in the States or is it just sort of its own thing?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "></p><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">University of Chicago students have access to a much larger, greater library of books than Augustine ever did.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And yet, you look at his work and what he was able to accomplish, and you say how did he do it?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Well the reason mainly was because he was a parish priest.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Or for a different type of example, consider the church of North India is an ecumenical denomination that began, I believe, in the 1930s.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Churches that were previously mission affiliated essentially dropped their mission affiliation and said “We’re not primarily Baptist or Anglican or Lutheran; we’re primarily Indian,” and they began an ecumenical denomination.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So again the same question:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What instruction does or should these type of movements provide to Christian theological education in the U.S.?</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "></p><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">...living experience of the Christian life helped to sharpen their minds and their ideas so that language itself became for them means of witness.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">LS:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We come to religion, the study of religion from the point of view of the text, studying the text, studying books.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I’m a great believer in doing it the other way around.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Actually, practice of the Christian faith informs your understanding in certain ways.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Text by itself can come alive in ways that it would not if you </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">merely</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> look into the text; it remains a kind of inorganic information which it depends for you to bring to life.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The bible is a book of faith but we made it a text of study.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And look at someone like Augustine, bishop of Hippo.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">University of Chicago students have access to a much larger, greater library of books than Augustine ever did.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And yet, you look at his work and what he was able to accomplish, and you say how did he do it?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Well the reason mainly was because he was a parish priest.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">MC:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Wow.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">That’s really great.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">LS:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">He was a parish priest.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And the same thing with the others, Origen and the others they were priests; they were pastors.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">They had great erudition because their living experience of the Christian life - their practices - helped to sharpen their minds and their ideas so that language itself became for them means of witness, of being faithful.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And so you couldn’t be frivolous, with language.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Augustine said that he met many people who wanted to deceive, but he didn’t know anyone who wanted to be deceived.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So the academy itself can benefit from the exposure of these ideas to the field, and I believe that what happens in the field takes up new life when you have the opportunity, the privilege of reflecting on it. So the two are not necessarily opposed.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">They go together.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Only you have to change the combination of them.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">MC:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">One final question:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So with some of these ideas of theology being deeply embedded in experience, in the parish, in meeting needs and being amongst the people. With these ideas in mind do you see a need for the work of theology itself to change, and, if so, in what ways?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">LS:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I think theology has to grasp the significance of the boundary or the margin.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Not just marginality as an economic issue -those who are poor.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Or marginality as a physical issue - those who are handicapped.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">But marginality as a kind of moral consciousness - that we have a responsibility as scholars not only to consume values but to produce values, to create values.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So that business people architects and professional classes don’t get away with the idea that knowledge is value free and therefore they are not accountable to anybody.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Not only to take what is our right but to give something back. And I think we have this idea that we should press for human rights, the rights of minority, the rights of those who’ve been denied their rights and so on.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">That is true, but the heart of Christian theology should be this task of producing not consuming values.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Producing value. Creating values.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Often by taking mainstream establishment values or ideas and redeeming them.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">For that way, the task of theology would be the renewal of society, the revitalization of intellectual thought, the renewal of society.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So that business people architects and professional classes don’t get away with the idea that knowledge is value free and therefore they are not accountable to anybody.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">MC:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Yeah, that’s a critical point.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">LS:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And that’s a big task for us to do.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And I can’t see history doing that.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I don’t see geography doing that.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Or physics or astronomy.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">But theology can do it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">MC:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So is it problematic then to have both a theology and a theological ethics department.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">LS:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Yeah.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">MC:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Well I guess we’ve got some work to do here at the Divinity School then!</span></p></span>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408437704119411473.post-45859000160494221202009-02-13T15:40:00.003-06:002009-02-14T10:48:09.625-06:00Verbal Inspiration / Grammatical InterpretationThe previous post on creation and evolution was <em>not</em> on creation and evolution. This is very important. I do not say in that post what my own views are about creation or evolution or whether I have views. Granted, that non-commitment is annoying, but it's kind of how I do things on this blog at least. So, again, I did not actually say one way or another whether I think Christians <em>can or cannot</em> believe in the Bible and in evolution.<br /><br /><em>The point of the previous post was about how Christians relate to their convictions</em>. Are we committed to our beliefs before having reasons to believe them? Yes. And no. <blockquote>Are we committed to our beliefs before having reasons to believe them? Yes. And no. </blockquote> Yes, in that, as Augstine describes, faith is always seeking understanding (<em>fides quarens intellectum).</em> But no, in that, you only believe things that you have at least some reason to believe, whether personal experience, reliable testimony or historical documentation. There is also an element of <em>willingness</em> involved. You have to be willing to admit the possibility of something before you can find any reasons to believe it.<br /><br />We who claim Christian faith believe it is true. (Otherwise, presumably we would not believe it. I.e. we would not intentionally believe something false. There is also the question of whether it is actually possible to <em>believe</em> something that one <em>knows</em> to be false.) And Christianity claims to be a full statement of truth for creation. Thus all things that are true are Christian in some sense since if there were something true that was not Christian then Christianity would be making a false claim in claiming to fully represent truth for creation. This is popularly summarized by the phrase "All truth is God's truth." <blockquote>This is popularly summarized by the phrase "All truth is God's truth."</blockquote><a href="http://www.theologynetwork.org/christian-beliefs/the-bible/the-inerrancy-of-scripture.htm">Wayne Grudem</a> says the meaning of the "inerrancy of Scripture" is that "Scripture in its original manuscripts does not affirm anything contrary to fact."<br /><br />This means that people claiming Christian are not prohibited from believing anything <em>in ipse</em>, in and of itself. "All things are lawful," wrote the Apostle Paul. It of course does not mean that Christians have to accept as true whatever anyone claims to be true, for John wrote "Test the spirits to see if they be from God." Indeed we have tools for discerning God's will or God's truth on all matter to the greatest degree possible. One of these tools is the Bible.<br /><br />Now, there are different views on how to interpret the Bible's claims. The issue at stake in relation to the question surround the creation/evolution debate is whether Christian faith requires a verbal inspiration view of the Bible or another. If the Bible is verbally inspired by God (i.e. God selected the specific words themselves for the Bible), then the first and most appropriate method for interpreting the Bible is grammatical. Grammatical interpretation would seem to call Christians to maintain a six day creation of the world because that's what the words themselves say.<br /><br />So the closing question for this post is, Is a verbal inspiration view of the Bible necessary? Why? What is at stake?<br /><br />Again, you'll notice that, in keeping with such a view, one would have to read my question as an actual question and not as a suggestion that verbal inspiration is not necessary.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408437704119411473.post-57697825441375637182009-02-07T15:22:00.008-06:002009-02-07T17:09:01.737-06:00Darwin vs. Creation: A Necessary Antithesis?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW-Ivf-QV6Fb11LaAKDkUZrBwO7GpPLSqJlKecDwKlVluyIWuBhyphenhyphenC_2nBKsrWwiDzp8pByxqNKUQTwTmq7JxlA90GY4Pn9Myt9J529Km2zSbomUnmf9_2-LBZQKRV2u_hM-OhfmT5rrkE/s1600-h/Darwin.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 229px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW-Ivf-QV6Fb11LaAKDkUZrBwO7GpPLSqJlKecDwKlVluyIWuBhyphenhyphenC_2nBKsrWwiDzp8pByxqNKUQTwTmq7JxlA90GY4Pn9Myt9J529Km2zSbomUnmf9_2-LBZQKRV2u_hM-OhfmT5rrkE/s320/Darwin.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300186259371067842" border="0" /></a>I don't get into Faith and Science discussions really simply because God has not blessed me with the brains for science. I wish I could do it, but alas. But Christine does math, so I am at least vicariously linked to science (?). This is a fun graphic from <a href="http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13062613">the economist </a>that relates to some questions I have about Christian belief and scientific understanding of the world.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Regarding evolution: </span>Why do many Christians feel evolution represents the paragon of godless secularism? Presumably because evolutionary theory offers an explanation of human origins that does not require God. But note, evolution does not <span style="font-style: italic;">necessarily</span> imply godless origin of the world. God could have ordained the world's creation via evolutionary processes. The sticking point is defending the claims of scripture.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Regarding 7-day creation/ism:</span> Why do many Christians feel that Christian faith requires commitment to a 7 day creation? Presumably because (1) the story of creation in Genesis 1-2 tells of a 7 day creation, (2) to believe in a 60 billion year creation suggests the Bible was wrong, (3) the Bible cannot be wrong and (4) therefore Christian faith requires belief in a 7 day creation.<br /><br />See some of these helpful links:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.eauk.org/resources/idea/bigquestion/archive/2005/bq7.cfm">Can a Christian Believe in Evolution</a></li><li><a href="http://community.berea.edu/scienceandfaith/essay05.asp">Evolution for Christians</a></li><li><a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2008/07/08/should-christians-celebrate-evolution">Should Christians Celebrate Evolution</a><br /></li><li><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/17/AR2005091700117.html">Darwin Goes to Church</a><br /></li></ul>Hypothetically speaking, what if the writer of Genesis 1-2 <span style="font-style: italic;">literally </span>intended to be telling a story about how God providentially created the world and cares for it and about how the world is to rely on God in all things, <span style="font-style: italic;">but did not literally mean</span> that God brought the world about in a matter of seconds? (Don't yet say, "But that's not what it says." This is just a thought experiment.) What if the <span style="font-style: italic;">science </span>of the world's creation never even crossed the storyteller's mind? In that case, would a commitment to reading the Bible literally still prohibit a belief in evolution?<br /><br />Another hypothetical, let's suppose that scientists actually documented incontrovertible <span style="font-style: italic;">proof </span>for the theory of evolution. If this were to happen, would 7-day creationists then (1) say the evolutionary scientists must have made a mistake, (2) say Genesis made a mistake or (3) change their understanding of the meaning of Genesis 1-2?<br /><br />If #1, then we have a serious problem, for this means that there does not need to be any recorded verification of any kind for true Christian faith. Anyone could always appeal to their own interpretation.<br /><br />#s 2 or 3, <span style="font-style: italic;">do not </span>undermine the Bible's claims to authoritatively describe the human experience, its helpless state and its source of salvation. The idea that any data-mistake (numerical, geographical, historical, etc.) disproves the Bible is one of the greatest lies to have deceived the Church. Genesis 1-2 can be read in other ways, and I think that there is compelling reason to believe Genesis has no scientific intentions. Thus to read it as making claims about physics, chemistry and biology is actually to <span style="font-style: italic;">misread</span> it.<br /><br />I could, perhaps should, and even want to keep going. But I have reading to get to. But I plead to the Church, to Christians who see their high-school science classrooms as enemy territory: examine carefully, does scripture prohibit evolutionary explanations? Re-examine. Do not supply the automatic response that you've been told it "correct." Ask, why is it correct? Is it correct? And if it is correct, then no one will be offended if you ask and decide it is.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408437704119411473.post-14575631198849030772009-02-06T09:41:00.008-06:002009-02-06T12:00:36.215-06:00Gentrification, Hypocrisy, Moving into Woodlawn<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDiH9rLERGcpwaddZdbpbSHu00_nQs8Fie_f9bfbuvSRJ88UGEKAEwIZHMdge3A3j1T2GXLBOlFwZ7fP0xFYhcfv_3CD0VQ1-n_D7sTjkNm0PzR6f-A8O6D2CBmFITMNOZdYC4DmQlCKw/s1600-h/kitch.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299713941256848626" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDiH9rLERGcpwaddZdbpbSHu00_nQs8Fie_f9bfbuvSRJ88UGEKAEwIZHMdge3A3j1T2GXLBOlFwZ7fP0xFYhcfv_3CD0VQ1-n_D7sTjkNm0PzR6f-A8O6D2CBmFITMNOZdYC4DmQlCKw/s200/kitch.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">The question:</span> Would I be contributing to economic and racial segregation by purchasing a condo in Woodlawn (and thereby participating in the gentrification of the neighborhood)?<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">The issue:</span> Chicago has a history of gentrifying poorer neighborhoods, and the result has often been that the neighborhood gets nicer but at the expense of moving all the old residents out and bringing in new residents. So the people who could afford to live there when it was a "bad neighborhood" cannot afford to there now that it's a "nice neighborhood." So they move and rich people move in and the division of classes (and usually race) stays roughly the same.<br /><br />The Woodlawn community just south of the University of Chicago is o<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizGJ7Rz3DlRa5-jX-FC7BFbP8gDDFvswy9TmqLPkbex4q1k1lQfp3RvAYeggDDGXH0EeOTrQKnniKS8SkZmU0VlclHj4FhLAcmndOZTCSv1rceL4jAH1VRQlx14QchTRk0aIup0rlDJx4/s1600-h/LR.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299714066207824434" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizGJ7Rz3DlRa5-jX-FC7BFbP8gDDFvswy9TmqLPkbex4q1k1lQfp3RvAYeggDDGXH0EeOTrQKnniKS8SkZmU0VlclHj4FhLAcmndOZTCSv1rceL4jAH1VRQlx14QchTRk0aIup0rlDJx4/s200/LR.jpg" border="0" /></a>ne such neighborhood. The University has purchased a good deal of land in the neighborhood, and is planning to be moving (and growing) into the area. It has already built new graduate housing, is in the process of building new undergraduate housing and is planning to move its police headquarters to this area.<br /><br />Gentrification is well under way and there are many old buildings (condo and apartment) that have been gutted and renovated. Because this process is still somewhat just beginning, there are many "great deals" to be found in housing there. The area can't yet support, e.g. $350,000 for a 2-bdr condo in the way that Lincoln Park on the North side can. No one would buy it. Thus, you can get a really nice 3-bdr, 2-bath completely newly renovated condo for $250,000 (pictured).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrkdJS4cqoMjaEm3NI25zPbheOhkX51VCCEr51JhBHKuWlg_Qu65XpYyRBCEiawL7Bw9AF9HfbBxcHEGBqPa_BFpQDmv1hXw5aemSObgH8632PWI_zRN-lr_CM-6d5onuR6D7bE9PcXVo/s1600-h/bath.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299714240700038658" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrkdJS4cqoMjaEm3NI25zPbheOhkX51VCCEr51JhBHKuWlg_Qu65XpYyRBCEiawL7Bw9AF9HfbBxcHEGBqPa_BFpQDmv1hXw5aemSObgH8632PWI_zRN-lr_CM-6d5onuR6D7bE9PcXVo/s200/bath.jpg" border="0" /></a>I really want to buy this condo. It is, objectively, a phenomenal deal. For all intents a purposes it would be getting a brand new condo for about half of what I'd pay for a smaller, lower quality place only a few miles away. But I am nervous that to do so would be to act in complicity with larger forces of social inequity that I claim to oppose.<br /><br />Any thoughts? I'd love to hear.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408437704119411473.post-75151548896153492082009-02-05T22:01:00.008-06:002009-02-05T23:38:20.686-06:00Fit In Churches?"You're never going to find the perfect church." I have heard and used this phrase many times. It's a handy, if unhelpful, reminder to give anyone who is feeling anywhere from "off" to downright dissatisfied with the congregation they attend. I am finding myself feeling quite "off" right now regarding my fit in my local congregation. Something just isn't right. It's not the "right place." It feels a bit "off" is all I can say.<br /><br />To anyone from my church that may read this (though unlikely): I'm fairly confident my unrest has more to do with me than with our communion. And I have good reason for this confidence since the feelings I'm having are the same feelings I've been having about church in general for about 6 years now - with about 1.5 years of awesome churchness stuck in the middle there. Moreover, because I see that these feelings of unrest and "off"-ness have transcended my interaction with specific churches, I believe that in this case the reminder "You're never going to find the perfect church" does not apply in this case. <blockquote>...because these feelings of "off"-ness have transcended my interaction with specific churches, I believe "You're never going to find the perfect church" does not apply in this case.</blockquote>I know what I'm saying is vague. However, many times the thoughts and feelings that excite or trouble us the most (and subsequently affect our moods and decisions) are vague. Thus, a little extra time wading through my vagueries seems appropriate:<br /><br />For me, the issue here is discerning what kind of church I feel called to and actualized in. That is, I do not have in mind a list of criteria that I expect to meet in a church (theologically, missionally, liturgically, etc.) which the churches I've attended have failed to meet. I <span style="font-style: italic;">am </span>able to point out theological, missional and liturgical things that I would change in my church experience. But these do not form the <span style="font-style: italic;">crux </span>of the matter. The issue is discerning what kind of church setting or tradition I feel at home in.<br /><br />What calls me out? What liturgical, traditional and theological voices compel me? Yes, I see that I am looking for traditional practices and theological committments that <span style="font-style: italic;">compel </span>me. I am straining to hear voices that hold my attention and regard. I know that I have found such voices in the history of the Church as well as in the comtemporary theological converstation among theologians in various parts of the world (USA, Africa, India, academy, parish, etc.). But where am I to find their corresponding practices in <span style="font-style: italic;">churches</span>?<br /><br />On the one hand, my life is committed to the service of the Church. At present, I expect this to primarly take the form of work in academic and practical theology and theological education both in the U.S. and in Africa. At the same time, the possibility of serving churches in the capacity of pastor, teacher, elder and so on excites. On the other hand, for whatever reason, I think 2-3 years of just being part of a larger, older, established church might be critical for me to settle down theologically and ministerially as I have finished seminary and am beginning doctoral work. Why?<br /><br />In no intentional order - First, I have not used the M.Div at the Divinity School as a program for preparation for <span style="font-style: italic;">parish </span>ministry. I maintain that I did not use it as simply a stepping stool to PhD study and rather that I have aimed all along at preparation for teaching in seminary and Christian college/university settings; for me the M.Div over an M.A. suits this intention. But the point is, I have taken pretty much the minimum in required pastoral training courses. But I need more work in preaching and I especially desire more training in pastoral care and spiritual formation/direction. I have greatly profited from more sustained study in the history of Christianity than I realized I would receive here. This experience, however, has awakened in me a longing for greater communion with and fidelity to that history in my daily Christian life and congregational church life. I am looking for "church" that feels connected and committed to "Church".<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>Second, I did both of my field placements in seminary "non-traditionally." My parish internship was in a church plant that simply did not have in place much of the operating structures of established churches and I, as intern, was allowed and expected to play an integral role in the spiritual leadership of the church. I did not gloat in that as I may have a few years earlier, but I did not resist it either as I now think I should have. <blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">I need learning, training and mentoring by older, wiser pastors and elders in what being "pastor" requires</span>. </blockquote> Granted that I am one term away from finishing an M.Div at a prestigious institution and that, by external measurements, I am "ready" to now move to the pastorate. But, take it from me, I'm not ready (i.e. equipped and matured) to move to the pastorate - associate or otherwise. <span style="font-style: italic;">I need learning, training and mentoring by older, wiser pastors and elders in what being "pastor" requires</span>. Books and being a role model to college student - while vitally important sites of learning and ministry - are not sufficient. My non-parish intership took the form of an immersion project with pentecostal chuches in Africa and it was quite good actually. It schooled me in serving under and alongside Christian belief and practice that is much different than my own. Nevertheless, it was still a project of my own design, and something I feel I really lack is experience in ministry where I am not designing and implementing things myself.<br /><br />Listen, I lack a spiritual maturity that I hope pastors have. I told my teaching pastor last year, "I can do administration. I can make things run smoothly and efficiently. But that's not spritual leadership to me." My friends tell me a unit of CPE might be a good soul ointment for what ails me. They might be right. It is simply true that to a large degree what I understand the work of the minister, the pastor, to be has come to me through my own experience, and that experience has furthermore been of my own design - an amalgam of personal conversations, books read, courses taken, worship experiences, and a host of cultural influences that I've tried to translate into something called "ministry." Am I essentializing here? Am I looking for something that does not exist? Have I created a fictive and idealized "minister" or "pastor"? Am I already a church leader? Should I be? Should I see myself as such? In reverse order, I don't, I don't think I should be, and I think that I am.<br /><br />A point that came up a moment ago helped me realize something (or see a way to put something). I wrote, "I am looking for 'church' that feels connected and committed to 'Church'. " <blockquote>"I am looking for 'church' that feels connected and committed to 'Church'. " </blockquote>The kinds of churches I have long affiliated with have always emphasized their Bibilicity. The mainstream evangelical culture in which I was raised made the "Biblical" the standard by which all other standards were measured. This, however, often had the sometimes intentional and sometimes unintentional result of undermining or dismissing altogether the history of the churches that have striven to preserve the Biblical. Obviously (or at least I hope "obviously") what is Biblical is not self-interpreting. All churches are faithful to traditions of interpretation whether they admit it or not. I feel the need to be part of a church tradition that highly regards its tradition, recognizing that it only is what it is because of the grace of God communicated to it via the <span style="font-style: italic;">tradition </span>that passed down understandings of God's revelation of truth to it. In short, I am looking for a more tradition-based church. A church that is committed to the/a tradition (i.e. both the broader Church tradition and its own specific tradition in it). A church that teaches not only "the Bible" but also actually teaches tradition.<br /><br />Thus, it seems to me that a church with a mission to make a church out of the unchurched is not the place for me. A church that combines this mission with being a church plant is especially not the place for me. Why? I have a hard time seeing how such a group of people even knows how to go about being a church. The tradition of the church - and the history of Christianity - do not just automatically *poof!* become important to you if you've no prior background or interest. These things must <span style="font-style: italic;">come to be </span>important to you. Therefore, if you're working with a group of people who have no prior background or interest in the history of Christianity and the tradition of the church, you either have to be fine with taking like 20 years to grow and nurture a mature community of believers or you have to emphasize things other than the history of Christian faith and tradition (than <span style="font-style: italic;">historic </span>Christian faith and tradition?). It seems to me that due to convenience many church plants aimed at the unchurched take the latter route. Others turn out all right - hey, they turn out well! - but the road is, like I said, long and the people involved many times weren't expecting things to be so hard or take so long. Cf. the number of church plants that meet the fate of the first three seeds of Jesus' sower parable.<br /><br />If any potential readers have read all of this, you have too much time on your hands. Anyway, there a few other issues that fill out the rest of the stars in this one constellation. I'll probably put them in other posts I guess. But they include: I'm really battling within myself over some questions about the Christian's correct relation - really, <span style="font-style: italic;">my </span>correct relation - to wealth and poverty. Also, I am having difficulty thinking through how I should be committed serving people and giving of myself to the marginalized that I say I believe are so important in God's eyes. I believe that at the center of God's hear is not theology but the desparate and needy. But at the center of <span style="font-style: italic;">my </span>heart is usually wealth, theology, philosophy and comfort. And is duty ever Christian? Another post - thank you Beau - needs to address what appears to be a contradiction in what I'm saying: how is it that I say I want to be in ministry and that I don't want to be so involved in minstering right now? Probably some of this post gets at that tension, but more sustained reflection is necessary.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408437704119411473.post-1182700690443503672009-01-26T14:30:00.000-06:002009-01-26T14:31:03.649-06:00Vatican Channel at Youtube<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; white-space: pre; "><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/T1-OshJTkDM&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/T1-OshJTkDM&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object></span>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408437704119411473.post-36315902927682185742009-01-26T11:37:00.003-06:002009-01-26T11:40:48.615-06:00Why do we have to have a Christian version of everything? Why am I predisposed to not liking them?Why am I sometimes predisposed to criticizing or making fun of evangelicals/ism? What's the deal with this thing called <a href="http://www.godtube.com/" style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 204); ">GodTube</a>? Why do we have to have a GodTube, a "Christian" version of YouTube? But, then, why not? Why is that I was fairly sure before even watching one video there that the enterprise was cheesy and that I wouldn't ever want to be caught watching something there by one of my more liberally inclined friends? I actually do think it is sort of a corny - not to mention unnecessary - idea. On the other hand, I'm willing to admit that it has many helpful things to offer Christians. I also won't say it's not very creative, artistically innovative or professional (things evangelicals are often criticized of being, cf. most Christian movies). The question is why are many people (myself often included) predisposed to thinking <a href="http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=4629bd21c53e44a66b79" style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 204); ">this</a> is so cheesey and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-PoVhKWRtI&feature=PlayList&p=C50338E4B347B60B&playnext=1&index=15" style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 204); ">this</a> is funny. Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408437704119411473.post-87931496406710240232009-01-26T09:56:00.009-06:002009-01-27T17:50:13.398-06:00The Truth Project - let's be fair<div>I was complaining to my wife last night that Focus on the Family's <a href="http://www.thetruthproject.org/">"The Truth Project"</a> seems to be very popular - among evangelicals(?) - and at the same time very out of touch with the very thing it claims to be battling: secular culture. Dell Tackett, who wrote the stuff or something, uses the story of the spies examining the land and fearing the giants in Numbers to illustrate a similar situation facing Christianity in America or in the 21st century or in culture more generally. He writes that "w<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Times;">e live in a land filled with giants: judicial tyranny, homosexual activism, terrorism that could strike at any minute, a liberal media that seems to spin and distort everything into ugliness, rampant immorality and so on."</span> The problem with this list is not that it names things that are not issues. The list does name at least two real issues in American social and political discourse. To me it is obvious that homosexuality and terrorism are issues in people's minds. ("Judicial tyranny", "liberal media" and "rampant immorality" are simply too vague and vast as descriptors to be counted as issues all by themselves). The problem with the list is that it says nothing about racial injustice, poverty, corrupt business practices/economics, creation care... Regardless of your opinions/positions in these debates, it seems to me to be undebatable that they are major issues in our culture; and if Focus on the Family is going to claim to be confronting head-on a battle with secular culture facing Christians then it at least needs to acknowledge things the culture is emphasizing. I am not saying FoF needs to take its cues from the culture and make the things I've just listed its top priority. It just needs to acknowledge their existence. Correct me if I'm overlooking something.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Here's the antithesis. My wife, Christine, pointed out that what you consider the "real" issues facing society or facing Christians will depend to a degree on what values you are using to determine the issues. It also depends somewhat on what constituency you are serving. So Focus on the Family may be acting in a way perfectly consistent with its core values as a Christian organization. And its organizing mission is to minister to families, and so the biggest issues or problems in culture, from its viewpoint, will be issues directly relevant to families. Christine also noted that if FoF had given as the "giants" facing culture the list I provided, that ought to be just as open to critique for its relativity to a current trend. Her point in noting the trendiness was not that trends are bad; it was just an observation that emphasizing more "social justice" type issues right now is, in fact, trendy. And those who are quick to criticize groups like FoF for pushing their agenda need to be a little more forthright about the ways they are themselves pushing an agenda. If we are unwilling to admit our own issue-prejudices then we are implicitly claiming a certain universality for view. I.e. we are saying "My views are not just an agenda but they ought to be the view of everyone. They are the correct views for everyone. Everyone would be better off if they adopted this view too." Or we are at least saying, "My views are not just an agenda. They ought to be recognized by everyone as the correct view for me." Such thinking is a perfect example of the kind of oppression we all fear. </div><div><br /></div><div>From here we expanded our conversation into questions of cultural relativity and the ways theology can and should engage times and histories relevantly. We noted how many people we know - dear friends - who think that homosexuality is a settled issue but that American evangelicals persist in making it an issue. They are correct but in a way opposite to their meaning: In all of Latin American, African (excepting South Africa) and Asian Christianity (excepting some expat Asian theologians writing in the States) homosexuality is a settled issue - there's no question in these parts of the world that Christianity opposes homosexual practice. So in this instance it is the non-FoF/mainline protestant crowd that is acutely out of touch. I will continue to remain silent regarding my own views as I have for the last 3 years because people on both sides of such hotly contested issues is this one read this blog and to say one way or the other would be counter to my purposes both here and in continued graduate study. I really want to see opposing sides of divisive issues talk to one another with Christian charity and take one another seriously. But I think it is simply the case that the vast majority (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">per capita</span>; granting of course that there are exceptions) of the Christian world believes homosexuality to be contrary to Biblical teaching. I love my friends who are gay; my point is not to offend them or to cast my vote on the matter. My point is aimed at the view that ignores the non-western Christian view on the matter. </div><div><br /></div><div>For, consider this. Is not the response from the West to "educate" the entire rest of the world regarding human sexuality a blatantly neo-colonial move: The rest of the world is uncivilized and has not evolved to as advanced a state as we are here in West in this area of human sexuality. Therefore, we should educate them to teach them what their rights really are and how to understand their bodies. That's exactly what America and other European countries are doing. Another, somewhat less loaded example is "Female genital mutilation" - already a politically loaded term by the way. To many women this is not mutilation but "circumcision." See for example the work of Ghanian theologian <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=mwGBoyeXZlIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=mercy+oduyoye&ei=PPN9SYLqHKasNZivuZgO&client=safari">Mercy Oduyoye</a>. For my own part, it is a difficult thing for me to consider because from my Western context it seems "obviously" harmful. But in holding this view, am I not implying those local peoples in favor of it are "backward" and "undeveloped"? </div><div><br /></div><div>A few claims and opinions that come to mind relating to this discussion: Americans - liberal and conservative, religious and non-religious alike - are not pluralists despite the claims of some. The paradigm of liberal and conservative is meaningless in American cultural discourse. Either/or truth debates are futile as a way for Christians to engage culture. The genius of American democracy and one of the lasting contributions of the Reformation was the prioritization of the conscience of individuals and individual groups. Pluralism is the way forward for faith Christian engagement with culture.</div><div><br /></div><div>I would still argue that racial injustice should be very important to people interested in protecting families. To not consider it raises the question of which families you're protecting. My suspicion is that if judges were unilaterally ruling in favor of pro-life positions, small government and opposing gay rights then FoF probably wouldn't have such a problem with judicial tyranny. And I think that mentioning terrorism in this oblique way is just a utilitarian move to get people emotionally juiced. It says nothing about terrorism itself though. </div><div><br /></div><div>Truth Project Preview: </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:'Trebuchet MS';font-size:13;" ><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/fzvKOgCrag8&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/fzvKOgCrag8&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object></span><br /></div><div> </div>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408437704119411473.post-53144684695285196672009-01-25T00:00:00.004-06:002009-01-26T15:32:40.164-06:00Faith and Globalization - Volf and Sanneh on Yale panelHow do faith and globalization affect one another? How is each a function of the other? These are questions that interest me greatly. I had a special opportunity to interview <a href="http://www.yale.edu/divinity/faculty/Fac.LSanneh.shtml">Lamin Sanneh</a> yesterday when he came to the Divinity School here in Chicago to give a talk on the topic "Resisting Mission, Redefining Engagement". I hope to publish some selected portions of that conversation soon, but in the meantime you might enjoy this panel session in which Prof. Sanneh participated as part of the course Tony Blair just taught at Yale, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf1e-pf1irI">"Faith and Globalization."</a> <div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre; font-family:Arial;font-size:10px;"><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ALWM_9cVY4A&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ALWM_9cVY4A&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object></span><br /></div>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408437704119411473.post-41370137335476514082009-01-24T15:43:00.006-06:002009-01-25T01:37:29.434-06:00Thesis - Everyone's got some of these too<div>Yeah, so even though I like antithesis, I still have to write a thesis for my M.Div. It's actually due at the end of March and I have yet to start writing, though I have done a fair amount of preparatory research and writing. Here's something of the premise:</div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div>Many theologies have emerged from the non-western world in the last half-century. Most famously one might think of Liberation theologies of Latin America, Black Theology in South Africa and Feminist /Womanist Theology (the latter two being also found in the West but among socially marginalized populations). Also Asian and Post-Colonial theologies come to mind. So there is an exciting production of original theological articulation going on, not only in the West, but all around the world. </div><div><br /></div><div>The response in the West has been typically western: namely, we've decided to study it. That is, there have been all sorts of conversations about contextualization and mission, reforming mission, describing and documenting the growth of Christianity around the world and so on. But what we don't have so much is western theologians engaging non-western theologians in normative conversations, asking questions about what it would mean to say something is normatively Christian "for <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">us</span>." </div><div><br /></div><div>One reason for this that immediately springs to mind is that we in the west have an unfortunate track record of dominating the rest - defiling Christian faith, destroying culture and deleting histories in the process. So maybe theologians in the West have been a little gun-shy. I respect this hesitation, if that's what it is. But in so doing, we risk ignoring others in the name of respecting them. What is called for in this situation is not isolationism; no, I think we've actually got to listen to what the world's emerging theologians are telling us. The argument will simply be that in order to understand who we really are as Christian requires understanding of who others are as Christian. One's own Christian self-understanding is always a function of the Christian self-understanding of others. </div><div><br /></div><div>The goal of the thesis, then, will be to make some claims about what kinds of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">needs</span> there are for constructive theological exchange between different theological expressions and then to describe the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">nature</span> of that exchange. I won't be proposing a model for unity (cf. ecumenism in the 20th century). I will be proposing a model for pluralism that, by prioritizing self-understanding, forges cross-cultural relationships and partnerships.</div><div><br /></div><div>Simplified model - 3 Stages</div><div>1) Historical theology. Where do I come from theologically? (With the idea that I understand best the theological terms and definitions that formed my understanding to begin with.)</div><div>2) Anthropological theology. How have others answered question #1? (With the idea that others understand best the theological terms and definitions that formed their understandings to begin with.)</div><div>3) Systematic theology. How do answers to question #2 change my answer to question #1? </div>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408437704119411473.post-68595137122813947502009-01-24T14:57:00.008-06:002009-01-27T17:51:10.084-06:00The big and small ideas behind antithesizing: initial thoughtsHi, So I'm just starting this thing - both the blog and antithesizing in public - and time will tell whether it's something that will last. I'm suspicious of myself. But whatever. I like lots of different things, and so the blog will reflect that diversity of interests. From beer and brewing to theology to Africa to cultural critique to academic review. Labda hata kiswahili kidogo (i.e. perhaps even a little <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiswahili">kiswahili</a>).<br /><br />I believe in the Church and I'm committed to her well-being. I'm not Roman Catholic (yet), though I imagine my deep appreciation for the Roman Church and frustration with Protestants who slight it will come out in posts from time to time. I've never really had to identify with any branch of Protestantism. I spent many years in a generically evangelical setting. My early years were spent in fire-and-brimstone baptist circles, and while that bugged me for a while, I've come to see the many ways it has formed me - I think - for the better. Now, I'd probably fall into some category of Reformed Christianity, very broadly speaking. That is, if Reformed to you means <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schleiermacher">Schleiermacher </a>and co., then I'm Reformed; if the Reformed, however, are found strictly in the company of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_Westminster_Divines">Westminster Divines </a>then I'm probably not. Calvin + the Westminster Assembly + a certain reading Schleiermacher = <a href="http://www.epc.org/">Evangelical Presbyterian Church</a> as the best fit for me right now. Unfortunately, there are no nearby EPC churches. And Christine and I are trying to commit to going to church where we live. But if I continue on towards ordination, my hope at the present is still to pursue ordination in the EPC. I'm still working on a friend of mine who "knows people" in the EPC to advise me along the way.<br /><br />I usually don't care much for sectarian line-drawing, but I indulge it momentarily because sectarianisms and labels and identity boundaries are so deeply imbedded in American socio-cultural experience that being upfront about them can be helpful for sorting out who we are and who we'd like to be.<br /><br />And one of my purposes - if not <em>the</em> purpose - in staking this electronic space here is that I am looking for a place to be transparent about what I think about, what concerns me, what I love and what frustrates me. It's called "<a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/antithesis">Antithesis</a>" because all of those thoughts that we all have that we don't share because they might not come out right or because it's not really something we <em>actually</em> hold or believe - all of those thoughts are integral to what we <em>do</em> actually think and believe. But often we probably fear being misunderstood or misrepresented and can't pose a counter-point to the prevailing view. Well, to some degree, this thing for me is all about the counter-point. It's <em>not</em> about cyncism; I find I'm often cynical about cyncism. See, that's an example of antithesizing: at least giving the alternate view some airtime. Not because I think alternate views are always correct or the truth or because I want to support others' views or whatever, but because there's simply value in hearing another view clearly and understanding it well.<br /><br />So... There are only ideas and actions. Here, idea = action and action = idea. And now I'm getting to bogged down into my own unsettled philosophical questions. Am I a pragmatist yet? A Hegelian too? Is meaning a function of social use and performance? In studying Paul's letter to the churches of Galatia the other day, I started to wonder if Paul was a Kantian. Hah! Well, we'll see what happens. Enough for now since this kind of self-statment and introspection is one of the least popular genres of blogging among the blog-reading public.<br /><br />To any who may read this: participate as you like, ask questions, voice concern, offer insight, correct and critique, criticize, encourage. "Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ." (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=56&chapter=4&verse=15&version=31&context=verse">Ephesians 4.15</a>)Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408437704119411473.post-1182954875421217782009-01-21T15:32:00.001-06:002009-01-24T14:47:49.530-06:00Why I am not complaining about Rick Warren's invocation<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIgsOTR2cuGqBs7brcsBoEssURJvm78mY6ybNePDkyOsSWb8q9XjJucm5d8pt_pqca-7m33DEh1kxX-DD5yyK7q06PV5Ea_ayZnTFt66Wjgt-WkCwXTxe6STxkeEINJdv5A51wAkvH7Hg/s1600-h/ED-AI096_winter_20080821134910.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293987489299128194" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 134px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIgsOTR2cuGqBs7brcsBoEssURJvm78mY6ybNePDkyOsSWb8q9XjJucm5d8pt_pqca-7m33DEh1kxX-DD5yyK7q06PV5Ea_ayZnTFt66Wjgt-WkCwXTxe6STxkeEINJdv5A51wAkvH7Hg/s200/ED-AI096_winter_20080821134910.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />I know many people are upset both about Rev. Rick Warren's gave the invocation prayer at President Obama's inauguration. While I do not share Rev. Warren's understanding of aspects of Christian faith (or at least the one he describes in his <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Purpose Driven Life</span>), I must say I do not think he spoke in a way that was divisive or sectarian.<br /><br />Some people were opposed to his giving the invocation to prayer on principle since he has expressed views in the past (like his stance on homosexuality) that offend many. These views, however, encourage and do not offend many others. So I cannot oppose his being chosen solely on the grounds that some people do not like his views.<br /><br />I spoke with dear friends today who noted he used individualistic language like "my" and "me", that he insisted on being sectarian by using the name of Jesus five times and that when he a had chance to be large he was small. <div><br /></div><div>I will respond to each point in order: Concerning the first matter, he used first person singular pronouns twice ("me" and "my") and first person plural pronouns 49 times ("we" "us" "our"). Thus I am unable to judge his prayer self-centered, and I actually thought it focused nicely on the well-being of the whole nation. </div><div><br /></div><div>Second, I feel Warren's invocation was not sectarian for two reasons. One, he used a great deal of inclusive language, including "You [God] are loving to everyone you have made," "When we fail to treat our fellow human beings and all the earth with the respect that they deserve, forgive us," and "Help us to share, to serve and to seek the common good of all." Second, he noted that not all Americans share the same faith and carefully restricted his closing in the name Jesus to be representing only his own personal religious experience by saying, "I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life, Yeshua," etc. </div><div><br /></div><div>For my money, I did not think it was a particularly good prayer. But neither do I feel any need to find something wrong with it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, changing gears, perhaps Obama's choice to have Warren give the invocation is reflective of why we elected him president: namely, he seems to aim at actually representing the people. Greatest common denominator religion - i.e. restricting ourselves to what everyone believes - doesn't finally represent what very many believe. And I fear it may rob us of the kinds of unique contributions that make us strong.</div><div><br /></div><div>Read the transcript <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-inaug-warren-prayer-text21-2009jan21,0,2894094.story">here</a>.<br /><br /><br /></div>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09851399845446333912noreply@blogger.com2