The Orthodoctor

NOT Independence Sunday

2009-07-04T12:25:00.001-04:00

Instead of composing my own piece on the problem of celebrating the 4th of July in church, I am linking to a blog written by Michael Gorman, a new professor at Duke who has written some good books, particularly his one on Paul.

Check out what he has to say here.

Prenatal Testing and Eugenics

2009-05-19T00:55:00.002-04:00

I have not posted for a while, and I'm not terribly upset about that. But I am posting a link to my final paper for my Christian ethics class. I've had a few people express interest in reading it, so for your leisure I present it to you. I wrote on prenatal testing.

Prenatal Testing as Eugenics: Diagnosing the Undesireable

Starbucks, Apple, and AIDS

2008-12-22T17:37:00.004-05:00

Okay, so I never got around to writing a post on the election, and my reasons for not voting. But I have wanted to lay out some thoughts bouncing around in my head for the past month.

At the beginning of the month Starbucks participated in the effort to aid World AIDS relief by contributing 5 cents for every specialty drink ordered. On December 1, you could get your coffee and help a great cause as well. At least, that was how it was marketed. Starbucks expanded their advertising for the promotion to facebook, which of course allowed for numerous comments on the event's “wall.” The comments were pretty evenly split between people saying, “greedy Starbucks, 5 cents is hardly anything!” and others saying, “Great! I can get Starbucks and help a good cause!”

My first reaction was to echo the thoughts of the former group, as 5 cents really isn’t much at all. Plus, the event was intended to increase the consumer presence in each national Starbucks, thus actually boosting profits for the day. In short, Starbucks was not sacrificing anything to give 5 cents to AIDS relief per drink, and probably made out better than a typical day.

But all that aside, I began to think about the premise behind Starbucks’ “participation” in AIDS relief. I was particularly struck by a comment a person made on the facebook event. This young man voiced his disdain for Starbucks coffee, but then said, “Besides, I’m already doing my part to help AIDS relief by buying the Apple RED iPod.”

...Did you catch that? “I’m doing my part by buying the Apple RED iPod.”

Jean Baudrillard wrote of what he called the “simulacra.” He utilizes this concept to analyze, in particular, the democratic United States. I would not pretend to understand all that he intimates with this term, but the basic idea is that the simulacra is the copy without an original. It is pure simulation that stands in the place of reality, but to which no reality corresponds. The simulation becomes our reality. Baudrillard suggests that the simulacra is basically how we Americans experience all life. For example, the way we experience a football game is the same way we experience the Civil War; through the television. Or the way we experience the Iraq war is through the media, which is of course a particular narration/simulation of reality that has become the reality of the war as we experience and know it. All of it is simulation. The entirety of our lives is formed by the simulation, the simulacra.

What Baudrillard also observed is the way that simulacra renders citizens immobile. It thwarts social action. It does so by absorbing our activity into the proliferation of images and simulations that shape our bodies. With this in mind, reflect again on Starbucks mode of participation in AIDS relief: buy our coffee. Even more direct, slowly read what Apple says on its site about the RED iPod. “Since its introduction, (PRODUCT) RED has delivered over $100 million to the Global Fund. And now you can make an impact by purchasing (PRODUCT) RED.”

I find this absolutely remarkable, and really quite genius. Participation in AIDS relief is tied to buying an iPod. You participate by consuming. Thus, both Apple and Starbucks have found a way to simulate participation in AIDS relief by reinforcing the shaping of our bodies in practices of consumption. Therefore, simulacra ensures that we will continue to find ourselves trapped between processes of consumption and production, buffeting the continued success of capitalism, and the commodification of the entirety of our lives. I can now be “involved” in AIDS relief without leaving my home, without going abroad, without touching people, without moving outside of habits of consumption. My involvement in AIDS relief is clicking a button on the computer to purchase the RED iPod. Remarkable.

Like I said, I find this ingenious. Our reality is the simulation of involvement, and it is tied to consumerism. American capitalism has in part contributed to the poverty of nations in which AIDS is running rampant. But now capitalism is employed as the way to end AIDS. It is self-reinforcing. And global capitalism has the incredible ability to absorb all of life into itself. This AIDS event is merely another manifestation of capitalism’s ability to enact this absorption. I do think a critique needs to be brought against all of this, in order for our bodies to be freed from being both commodified, and from commodifying. But that’s not my main purpose in writing this brief account. I find the complex connections here astounding, and I am merely giving voice to that. My social involvement in fighting AIDS is tied to purchasing an iPod…now that is amazing.

I hope to write a post soon in which I detail how voting can be/is often simulacra. In fact, voting in the democratic United States is one of the principal ways this state ensures its own survival, and the pacification of its citizens. I also would love to unfold how the office of President is a kind of simulacra, in a way that is not so for most other nation-states. But Christmas break is only so long…. :)

Forthcoming Post

2008-11-08T02:14:00.002-05:00

It's true, I've largely given up on blogging. With 70 pages of papers to write between now and the end of the semester, it's difficult to imagine that I'd find any time to post snippets here. Furthermore, I suspect my readership is quite sparse, and my failure to blog regularly has not helped this. Nonetheless, I'm not ready to shut this thing down yet. Indeed, that may come, in time. But I would like to keep this space available for those who find it difficult to keep up with what I'm thinking and writing to have a brief snapshot.

Therefore, I thought it might be prudent to let ya'll know that I will hopefully be composing a short reflection on the recent national election. As all of you know, this was one of the most vicious and divisive elections of my lifetime. I found my stomach being turned all too often. I was especially ashamed and disappointed in many of my Christian brothers and sisters. Things were said (and are still being said) from Christians of a variety of political persuasions that are absolutely unacceptable as Christian discourse. So, with all that said, I intend to focus my post on why I did not vote. I'll admit, I'm glad with the outcome and think Obama will be a fine president. But I am even more confident in my conviction and decision not to vote in this past election. Those of you who know me well know that I consider voting to be the exception, not the norm, of Christian engagement in US politics. And I was far from convinced that this was one of those exceptions. Therefore, if time permits, I hope to set forth some of the reasons why I did not vote, the preeminent one being that I was firmly convicted theologically not to do so. The rest unfold under this.

Are Women Voters Sexist?

2008-09-10T14:05:00.003-04:00

I'm interested. Ostensibly any and every critique of VP-candidate Sarah Palin is construed as sexist by the McCain campaign. This is as ridiculous as saying calling Obama "uppity" is racist (although it's always confused me as to how Obama is the elitist when McCain is the one with over 7 houses and a wife worth $100 million...). Of course this is merely a manifestation of the reality that in elections like this truth is the first casualty. Christians should be particularly careful with the words we use in this season as well as with the extent and type of our participation in these coming elections. For the moment, though, I'd like to briefly pause on this claim that the Obama campaign is sexist for criticizing Palin. Various news-outlets report that a significant number of white women voters have (for the time being at least) put their support behind McCain, because of the selection of Palin for VP. How is that not sexist? How is it that Palin may potentially poach disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters when she is Clinton's ideological opposite? I suspect McCain's campaign may be right when it says this election is "not about the issues." At the very least, McCain seems to have bought into that quite thoroughly. Obama, of course, has his own problems with this as his entire campaign has been tainted with questions of racism. Is it racist to vote for Obama because he is black?

I suspect most will not actually reduce their voting rationale to whether a candidate is a woman or is black. Nonetheless, it is curious how the platforms of these candidates for the present time seems to have receded into the background and their distinctive novelty is what powers the polls.

Sweet Stewart

2008-08-03T23:00:00.003-04:00

This is not intended as a partisan ploy on my part. Do I think McCain's recent antics/ads are ridiculous? Yes. But his running mate proves McCain does not have the monopoly on ridiculous. This presidential race has already about run its course for me...But mainly I just love Jon Stewart. :) Enjoy, and laugh a little for Pete's sake. This election season is at least good for that.

Time for Some Campaignin'

2008-07-30T17:13:00.001-04:00

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New Biblical Controversy?

2008-07-12T14:55:00.001-04:00

What exactly is the controversy with this? The CNN headline read "New Biblical Controversy." I can't tell what is allegedly new and what is allegedly controversial...

July 6 Sermon

2008-07-07T15:27:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I preached my first sermon in a year and a half. It seemed to go relatively well, and I've received a lot of affirmative feedback. The audio and the written transcript are available on Myers Park UMC's website. You can find the audio here, and the written transcript here for now.

Quotables

2008-06-28T23:35:00.003-04:00

I'll be preaching on Matthew a week from Sunday, and in preparation I've been reading some commentaries. One of the commentaries I've been reading is Stanley Hauerwas' commentary on Matthew, which has been a treat. As expected, Hauerwas has a way of telling the story "with" Matthew (as he puts is) that brings greater clarity to what Matthew writes. Particularly poignant was a quotation from Warren Carter, in which Carter says, "[The] divine presence is manifested in Jesus (Mt. 1:23; 28:20) and in the community committed to him (18:20). The revelation of God's presence in Jesus' conception and birth (Mt. 1:18-25) brings a violent response from one of the empire's vassal kings (Mt. 2). The scene's theme and vocabulary are reminiscent both of Pharaoh's opposition to Moses' freeing God's people from slavery in Egypt and of Jesus' crucifixion by the religion and political elite...The gospel tells a story of a prophetic figure who suffers the worst that the empire can do to him, execution by crucifixion. But his resurrection and subsequent coming in power expose the limits of Roman power. The gospel constructs an alternative world. It resists imperial claims. It refuses to recognize that the world has been ordered on these lines. It offers an alternative understanding of the world and human existence centered on God manifested in Jesus. It creates an alternative community and shapes an anti-imperial praxis." (38)

And additionally, one of my favorite quotations from Yoder, and one of the most radical things I have every read: "'Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?' 'Glory' here cannot mean the ascension, which has not been recounted yet, and in fact is not clearly described in Luke's Gospel at all, although we know from Acts that Luke knew the tradition. Might it not then mean (as with the concept of 'exaltation' in John's Gospel) that the cross itself is seen as fulfilling the kingdom promise? Here at the cross is the man who loves enemies, the man whose righteousness is greater than that of the Pharisees, who being rich became poor, who gives his robe to those who took his cloak, who prays for those who despitefully use him. The cross is not a detour or a hurdle on the way to the kingdom, nor is it even the way to the kingdom; it is the kingdom come." (51)

O' what unfathomable mystery has been made manifest...

Dobson's Diatribe

2008-06-27T14:30:00.004-04:00

I know a number of people have written at length on the Dr. James Dobson and Tom Minnery broadcast discussing Barack Obama's speech in 2006 on religion and politics (see Scot McKnight's blog on Jesus Creed). But for some reason I felt it necessary to put myself through listening to the majority of the broadcast to hear what had really been said. I was, unfortunately, not that surprised that the broadcast was one of the most pejorative, divisive, and absolutely insane things I've heard in quite some time. It was an exercise in distortion and misrepresentation. Ironically, that is exactly what the two commentators accused Senator Obama of doing. Regardless of whether Christians should or should not vote for Obama, this broadcast was embarrassing.

I won't go into too many specifics, but there were a few comments that struck a chord. In an effort to accuse Obama of something he did not do, that is equate the Levitical laws with the Sermon on the Mount, Tom Minnery said, "Laws that applied to them then, the Levitical code [...] no longer apply. Many of the principles of the OT apply, but not those laws." I'll refrain from commenting on the merit of the statement (although I think it incredibly problematic to write off certain portions of Scripture), but I would like to point out his claim that the principles of the OT apply. Whenever I hear the word "principle" used in this fashion I have to wonder if Reinhold Niebuhr does not stand behind it in some way. The reason I wonder this is because other positions I've head from these two commentators seem to be consonant in many ways with Niebuhr's "Christian realism." My concern is that this hermeneutic is not only one Mr. Minnery would use on the OT, but the NT as well, such that there are "principles" in the NT that can be abstracted from the Gospel story and then approximated as best we can to make America into a Christian nation. This abstraction often ends up being somewhat arbitrary and capricious. Senator Obama called the Sermon on the Mount, "a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application." I suspect Mr. Minnery has a "principle" from the Bible that reduces this radicality.

Since I said I would only comment briefly, I will comment on one more item. As best I can tell, from reading Obama's speech, he seems to have a Rawlsian view of the role of religion in public discourse. Obama said, "Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all." This sounds to me like Obama has been shaped by Rawls, specifically his "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited." And I think this is embedded in political liberalism more intrinsically than other might want to concede. But to put it another way, Obama is merely giving voice to the political and philosophical commitments required for American democracy.

Now, I think Rawls is wrong, but not in the way Dobson does. Dobson said that what Obama means (he and Mr. Minnery seem to have some authoritative insight into what Obama "really means") is that unless everybody agrees we have no right to fight for what we believe...c'mon Dobson, I'm not sure even you really buy into that misinterpretation. If Dobson could mount a critique of Rawls then perhaps he would have something substantive to say, but it wouldn't look anything like what he actually did and does say. I know Dobson is attempting to be a Christian in American as best he knows how, but someone has to call him on crap like this. Perhaps if fewer churches were planning patriotic worship services for the weekend of the 4th people like Dobson could see in the witness of the church the inbreaking of God's kingdom.

Reimagining Memorial Day

2008-05-26T17:10:00.001-04:00

Memorial Day is a day that captures well the central narrative that constitutes the American identity. It is not only a day to remember those fallen in combat, but a ritual that sacralizes the American narrative and creates a people named American. In this way the day is deeply religious, and serves to both celebrate national loyalty as well as imbue the American conscience. So it is no surprise that today millions of Americans will gather on parade routes, waving flags, applauding military personnel, and wearing shades of red and blue. This ritual is a sacrificial ritual, as the death of those in battle is cast as such, in the name of freedom, patriotism, protecting one’s nation, and so on. And this is precisely why the day is problematic for Christians.

Nonetheless, many Christians will don the red, white, and blue and join their fellow Americans in telling the story of American war casualties as we have been taught to tell it. That we have been taught to tell this story this way ought to remind us that remembering and storytelling are moral activities. Alasdair MacIntyre, and Hauerwas under his influence, have been incise in pointing to the connection between narrative and identity. Our identity is constituted by the narrative(s) that inform our life. We are who we are because we have been born into traditions that make us into the people we are and are becoming. The problem, thus, with Christians telling the American story the way Memorial Day asks us to tell it, is that it is a story that should not be ours, and is a story that seeks to undermine the narrative proclamation of the fourfold witness of the Gospel.

That Christians insist on participating in national rituals like Memorial Day suggests that in the hopes of transforming America we have instead found ourselves transformed by it (Stanley Hauerwas has insightfully shown how and why this is the case particularly in his book “After Christendom?”). But I would suggest that Memorial Day also affords Christians with the opportunity to resist the American myth precisely within the practice of remembering. The practice of the Eucharist is the central ritual that forms the worship life and identity of Christians. It is in the Eucharist that we learn how to remember, and that remembering is embodied in the concrete practices of partaking of the body and blood of Christ. It is the Eucharist that reminds us that Christ is the end of sacrifice, and all alleged sacrifices must be cast in relation to his. Therefore, when Christians call the death of American soldiers sacrificial, we are using language that undermines our belief that Christ’s sacrifice is the normative sacrifice.

Of course, Christians have not bought into this idea senselessly. I suspect we really do believe that American soldiers have sacrificed themselves in order to defend our freedom, or to ensure that we are enabled to live the lives we have been taught to live. I also suspect most Christians would wholeheartedly applaud President Bush’s speech at Arlington National Cemetery, wherein he said, “I am humbled by those who have made the ultimate sacrifice that allow a free civilization to endure and flourish.” American society, founded as it was on philosophical and political liberalism, has and always will be dependent on its war-making character. A civilization like American does need people willing to make “the ultimate sacrifice” in order for it to exist. That this is so should make Christians pause before we herald the freedom such deaths allegedly ensure. After all, Christians believe that we have been made free by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, not the death of soldiers.

Bush concluded the above quotation with the following: “It only remains for us, the heirs of their legacy, to have the courage and the character to follow their lead and to preserve America as the greatest nation on Earth and the last, best hope for mankind.” Such a statement should appear odd for a Christian to utter, as there is nothing in it that is not idolatrous. It is not the role of Christians to preserve the American nation. But even more explicitly idolatrous is Bush’s claim that American is the last and best hope for mankind…what, might I ask, does that make Jesus? If Bush is a sincere Christian, which I suspect he is, then how can we interpret this statement? Has Bush so intertwined America with Jesus that to speak of one is to implicitly speak of the other? Has Bush positioned America over and above Jesus or does he really believe that the American project is indistinguishable from Jesus as the hope of mankind? By what standards is Bush able to say American is the “greatest nation on Earth,” and how then does he understand the inevitable rearranging of international power relations with the “rise” of China?

Equally disturbing is the observation that many Christians would not blink an eye at Bush’s claim. I am not confident that Christians will recognize the idolatry of such a statement as long as we continue to think that freedom of religion, in the way it currently operates, is a good thing. Freedom of religion has functioned to create a space called “private,” to be distinguished from the “public” in order that democracy can work. Many of the founding fathers assumed that in order for a peaceful society to exist religion had to be relegated as private. Considering the centuries of religious wars in Europe, this assumption was not without basis. The great irony, of course, is that while Americans no longer kill in the name of religion they are more than ready to kill in the name of the nation.

Yet Christian salvation is political, and this politic is embodied in the existence of the church. That Christ is Lord means that Caesar is not, and thus national loyalties are always kept in check by the lordship of Christ. For Christ is not Lord over some space we call “private,” but is Lord over the entire cosmos. Therefore, Christians must imagine a way to tell the story of American deaths in war in a way that does not make those deaths relative only to their lives as soldiers. It is not the case that we seek to condemn those who have died in war, or to dishonor them for their involvement in the politics of the world that are judged by the politics of Jesus. Rather, perhaps their deaths serve to remind us of our own complicity in the war-making character of this society. Perhaps their deaths can move us to repentance, and usher us to the table of the crucified one. I am not sure the best way for us as Christians to do this, but I think it can be done. After all, the conviction that we worship a crucified God requires that we be brought into a story that strikes all as foreign. And it is, for this is not a God we can know apart from this God making himself known. Nor is God’s way or ruling the world able to be surmised by political and military tacticians.

A good place to start is to refrain from the pomp of the Memorial Day parades, and perhaps instead to bow at the Eucharistic table of the Lord who refused to accept the politics of this world as his means of establishing the Kingdom of God. What if while many Americans observed silence for the death of soldiers, Christians were at the same time found in sanctuaries, observing silence before the table of the Lamb of God, who is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and who has conquered by being slain? What if we refused to accept the story of these soldiers’ deaths told by those who would seek to make both their lives and deaths meaningful in relation to their identity as soldiers?

New Blog!

2008-03-26T18:25:00.003-04:00

To my faithful (er, nonexistent?) readers,

I've finished uploading my academic papers to a new blog where they can be accessed. The site is still somewhat "in progress" and some of the papers need some additional formatting. Nonetheless, this gives you the opportunity to take a glimpse at some of the work I'm producing here at Duke. You can access the site here.

Blessings.

Quotables

2008-03-24T01:46:00.002-04:00

"The problem with the [American] flag in the chancel is not just that it is idolatry, but that it is too powerful a symbol of sacrifice and therefore it competes with the sacrifice of the altar[...]
I myself am absolutely convinced, it never occurs to me to be judgmental about people who have gone to war. I think that that is just shitty, it's just stupid. Those of us committed to Christian nonviolence are every bit as implicated in the war making character of this society. Language is all important, and you can't find much better than in the Book of Common Prayer, in which you will discover prayers that give thanks for these lives without specifically making their lives relative only to their military service. They know better, and you'll discover that they will appreciate that."

-Stanley Hauerwas, Sacrificing the Sacrifices of War

A Review of "Stony the Road We Trod"

2008-03-13T10:38:00.000-04:00

Stony the Road We Trod is a significant compendium of essays demonstrating African American biblical hermeneutics. The project seeks to offer an analysis of the way in which African Americans have interpreted and continue to interpret the biblical text. Integral to the project is the way in which the experience of blacks in America has shaped their hermeneutic. The claims made in the third chapter of the book by Weems constitute a significant conviction of the book: all biblical hermeneutics derive from the interpreter’s own experiences in such a way as to validate and reinforce those experiences. In this essay I will first describe the text’s construal of African American hermeneutics, and then conclude with a brief evaluation of the book.

As aforementioned, Weems' chapter is crucial for understanding much of what occurs in this text. It is her contention that meaning emerges between the interaction of the text and the reader. Thus, reading is very much a social convention that is predicated upon the interpretive community with which one identifies. The dominant class in society is therefore able to project its hermeneutic as the right one, often leading to legitimation of oppression and injustice. One of the pernicious subtleties of Eurocentric biblical hermeneutics is its self-understanding as normative. Such hermeneutics have failed to acknowledge their own cultural conditioning and biases. Following from these considerations Weems acknowledges that specifically African American women’s reading of Scripture have arisen out of the twofold marginalized experience of being black and a woman.

In light of the African American experience of white oppression in America, blacks initially retold and remembered the biblical stories relayed aurally by white slavemasters in relation to their self-interest as slaves. The chapter by Dr. Shannon on the “Ante-Bellum Sermon” demonstrates how in the context of slavery blacks developed a reading of Scripture that gravitated towards liberation, in particular the freeing of Israel from Egypt. A correlation was made between the ancient Israelites experience and the African American experience under slavery in order to inspire hope in the people and to subversively combat the ideological reading of the slavemasters. The resultant hermeneutic underscored God’s liberation and opposition to slavery, interpreting the conflict not between slave and slavemaster but between God and evil.

This hermeneutic establishes the tradition in which the contemporary African American interpreter stands. Black hermeneutics demands that its experiences be taken as seriously as those of the dominant Eurocentrism. Therefore scholars such as Cain Hope Felder, Charles Copher, and Randall Bailey, have gone to considerable lengths to expose the de-Africanization typical of Eurocentrism. In this text these scholars do so by demonstrating the presence of Africans in the scripture, not to posit Africans as a superior race, but in order to dismantle the allegation of African inferiority. The book also pays considerable attention to the so-called curse of Ham and the presence of Africans such as Moses’ Ethiopian wife, and Sarah’s servant Hagar. Felder considers the curse of Ham (or better of Canaan) to be a demonstration of sacralization, wherein an ideology was interposed on religious tenets in order to justify the conquest of the Canaanites. Similarly, Waters suggests that in the J and E traditions comprising the account of Hagar, Sarah, and Abraham, we may be able to identify an increasing focus on the superiority of Israel in the E tradition. In J Hagar is seen as an Egyptian servant (conidered more historically probable) whereas the E tradition calls her a slave. One of the points these interpreters seem to be disclosing is that even the biblical texts are written from specific contexts in order to validate certain experiences.

This book raises all sorts of issues concerning canon and authority that lie outside of the scope of this essay. At this point I will describe some of the interpretive benefits this text grants, as well as some points of caution. First, one of the most significant aspect of the book is its ability to unmask the cultural conditioning of Eurocentrism. To call Black Theology a contextual theology presupposes not only a particular methodology, but also a dominant theology that is not Black Theology. With this unmasking Stony the Road offers us a reading of the Old Testament that may be more congenial at times than the typical Eurocentric reading. In particular, the close attention given to themes of liberation and care for the marginalized are often marginalized themselves. Furthermore, the black experience of oppression and stripping of identity in American society allows greater solidarity with the defining moment of Israelites history: the exodus from Egypt. This is similar to Myers claim that much of Eurocentric hermeneutic locks the interpretation of the text in the past, which makes it difficult to speak to issues of racism, sexism, and classism. The reading offered in this book opens up these possibilities more readily. Finally, in explicitly portraying black hermeneutics this book demonstrates Weems claim that interpretation depends on association with an interpretive community.

One of the problems that this text raises is how Scripture is to be appropriated. By pointing out ideological problems in the biblical text, I wonder how these biblical texts come to be used. If a text is inextricably “sacralized” can it be used? Can it only be used with deliberate rejection of ideology behind the text deemed inappropriate? In addition, one wonders if Weems’ claim that what one gets out of the text is what one reads into the text leaves us with no hope. If all of our interpretations are inevitably socially conditioned how can we reasonable adjudicate variegated interpretations? This is where the book risks what Myers considers James Cone’s tendency: to set up another imperialistic methodology. I don’t think, however, that the book ultimately falls into this error. In the preface Felder is clear that one of the purposes of this book is to provide a preliminary bridge to celebrate all of our stories as the people of God. Ultimately, though, a contextual theology such as the one found in Stony the Road retains the abstractness of theology with the presupposition that theology can be transferred from context to context and then used to legitimate the experience of that context. I am inclined to wonder if the narrative of Scripture has the potential to create what Dr. Kameron Carter calls “theological culture”. I want to believe that there is a sense in which we are not doomed to merely get out of a text what we read into it. In this sense I do believe that Stony the Road is exactly what it claims to be: merely a step in the right direction. But a significant step it is.

Stony the Road: A Critique of Eurocentric Hermeneutics

2008-03-02T13:55:00.004-05:00

So, I've been absent. No justifications are necessary. I've simply been spending enormous amounts of time on assigned work. This semester I have three exegesis papers, two NT and one OT, so needless to say "free" time is the time I get to spend on my assigned reading. Yet it is all time well spent, and I'm enjoying every minute of it. However, I decided I can't keep my bloggers in waiting for too much longer, so I thought I'd post some thoughts I wrote yesterday while I was reading Stony the Road We Trod. I was reading the second chapter composed by Dr. Myers. What follows is basically my attempt to summarize his thoughts:

Myers begins his chapter with an explanation of the problem for black bible students and professors as being the pernicious subtleties of Eucrocentrism. Particularly important is Myers critique of the Eurocentric approach considering itself as normative, not acknowledging its own cultural conditioning and biases. Specifically, Myers is concerned with Eurocentric hermeneutical methodology. He discusses the various solutions that have been proposed. Perhaps most notable is James Cone’s advocacy for a contextual strategy, beginning with African American sources and historical description. On the other side, there are those that suggest a more ecumenical strategy. He recognizes the danger in Cone’s approach of setting up another imperialistic methodology, while the second strategy must avoid enslavement to Eurocentric approaches.

Very generally, if I understand Myers correctly, he critiques an approach that suggests there is one “orthodox” interpretative methodology that interprets one “final form” (cf. critique of Brevard Childs, 50-52). Typically, Eurocentric approaches have associated this one primary method with historical-criticism. Thus, another concern of Myers is the way in which Eurocentrism has locked biblical interpretation in the past (e.g. concerned with authorial intent, original meaning, etc.). As a result Scripture is stripped of its ability to speak to contemporary issues (e.g. racism, sexism, classism).

Myers proposal for how black biblical scholars might find a way out of this methodological dilemma suggests a fundamental inseparability of canon and method. He expresses concern for Child’s approach claiming that focus on the final form (i.e. the final literary form) of the canon is most often used as a means of control by Eurocentric interpreters. By declaring the final form to set the boundaries for exegesis, the propensity for oppressive methodologies is heightened because one must be determine whose final form (mine!), whose stance concerning the scripture (mine!), is normative.

In contrast, Myers finds Sanders attention to the function of the canon as more helpful for the black community. The historical-critical method focused on explaining what is going on in the text, whereas Sanders approach suggests the text explains what’s going on in the world, illuminating human life. “The books retained in the canonical tradition are those that had value for explaining the world of the present believing community.” (52)

This approach also opens up the question of how other traditions within the larger tradition have functioned as authoritative. He notes that all denominations have traditions of near canonicity that are read with authority similar to the scripture. Thus, Myers asks what traditions have acted this way for the African American community (e.g. call narrative, conversion narrative, etc.). “Traditions guard those past events which give to the community its uniqueness and they aid the community in shaping its life in accordance with those originating events.” (54)

Myers concludes by saying, “We must inquire into the history of this wider canonical perspective in our community, clearly articulating how and why it developed, how it functioned, and how the intricate dynamics and relationships between these various sources helped to give shape to each other, to our hermeneutical methodology, as well as to our self-understanding as African Americans.” (55)

Any thoughts?

Mitt Romney is right...

2007-12-10T14:25:00.000-05:00

"Almost 50 years ago another candidate from Massachusetts explained that he was an American running for president, not a Catholic running for president. Like him, I am an American running for president. I do not define my candidacy by my religion. A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith.

Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin.

As governor, I tried to do the right as best I knew it, serving the law and answering to the Constitution. I did not confuse the particular teachings of my church with the obligations of the office and of the Constitution - and of course, I would not do so as President. I will put no doctrine of any church above the plain duties of the office and the sovereign authority of the law.

As a young man, Lincoln described what he called America 's 'political religion' - the commitment to defend the rule of law and the Constitution. When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God. If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A President must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States ."
-Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney on "Faith in America"

...which is why I find it incredibly difficult to imagine that a Christian can be president.

Conversing with Emergents

2007-11-30T20:22:00.000-05:00

A few weeks back I was fortunate to be able to attend a brief panel discussion on the Emergent Church. The panel consisted of a local pastor here in Durham who is relatively well known locally as being deeply embedded in the Emergent conversation. Dr. Mary McClintock-Fulkerson was his primary conversation partner, with a moderator as well. The discussion was relatively interesting and was focused on the place of creeds and doctrine in the Emergent Church.

The Emergent pastor was concerned with the way creeds and doctrines have become a litmus of Christian orthodox and wielded as a means of determining who's in and who's out. They function as a means of control, reinforcing the move of groups and nations to enclose themselves over and against other groups. His alternative was grossly ambiguous but he did seem to predicate some sense of doctrine as a unifying principle. But he was highly critical of the way doctrine and creeds have functioned.

This tendency of the Emergent Church is worrisome to me. Those in the conversation are right to critique the way in which theology and doctrine has been reduced to intellectual assent to disembodied ideas. That is, doctrine has been perceived as the litmus for Christian orthodoxy. If you believe the creeds and profess orthodox doctrine you are orthodox. The problem is that such an understanding of doctrine and theology has allowed Christians to continue to live in a modality of existence that does not depend on theology or doctrine. In other words, if orthodox doctrine is the litmus of true Christianity then Christians can live however they want, provided they adhere intellectually to the truths of the creeds.

Whether the Emergent Church recognizes this tendency in its critique is beside the point. Ultimately what they are critiquing is this very move (a theological move that has allowed Christians to order their life after the politics of the state [particularly the United States] and to raise the question of Christ and culture as if culture is monolithic and we must relate Christ to it). I wholeheartedly support this critique. Yet the corrective according to this pastor has tended to mitigate doctrine and creeds. The idea is that if adherence to doctrine and creeds has literally produced religious wars (cf. religious wars in Europe between differing Christian traditions), then reorienting our emphasis to other aspects of Christianity would be advantageous. What this reorientation looks like is nuanced but the basic principle seems to be common throughout the Emergent conversation.

The central problem with this move is that it reinforces the idea that doctrine and creeds are objects of intellectual assent only. That is, it takes this concept as a presupposition of the critique and thus the eschewing of doctrine and creeds ensues. What I want to suggest is that the Emergent Church in this particularity is merely propagating the problem it attempts to resist. Theology is hopelessly enclosed in its propensity for abuse.

What we really need is a corrective that rearticulates the function of doctrine and creeds, that is we need an account of theology that does not assume the theological tasks is one of dotting our theological "I's" and crossing our theological "T's". We need an account that more adequately expresses the function of theology.

In the question and answer period I raised this issue by utilizing an analogy between the creeds and the American pledge of allegiance. While it is highly limited and necessitates qualification, I nonetheless offer it to you. When Americans say the pledge of allegiance they are not merely affirming intellectual truths or propositions. By affirming the pledge they are committing to the lifestyle demanded by the pledge. That is, the pledge demands that its adherents live a certain kind of life. It demands a modality of existence.

Similarly, the Christians creeds demand a modality of existence. They witness to a way of life constituted and sustained by the body of Christ. Doctrine and creeds are not abstract principles of the Christian faith, but are the thinking internal to the Christian faith that not only witnesses to a modality of existence but produces that modality of existence. Theology must be performed. The theological task requires our entrance into the Christian tradition and our deep conditioning by that tradition.

But this understanding of theology is unable to function in the Emergent Church's critique. The EC has condemned theology to the locale of its distortion. We all live committed to some modality of existence, and my concern is that the EC is precariously searching for some locale or orientation. It resists finding it in theology because of theology's distortion. But what then makes demands on the way of life of the EC? If it's not theology I'm concerned it may be simply an inversion of conservative American Christianity.

I'd love to hear the thoughts of someone better acquainted with the EC. Ease my concerns.

...and baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

2007-11-06T00:15:00.000-05:00

I recognize this is a lengthy piece, but at the behest of my good friend Mike Cline I will be posting some of the essays I am writing during my time at Duke. Enjoy!

(By the way, if anyone knows how to footnote in blogger I'd love to hear how it's done. I have simply placed the references in the essay at the end for lack of a better method.)

The sacraments of the Church are gifts. They are gifts of the Holy Spirit in which the presence of the Spirit dwells. The Spirit gives these gifts to the Church, and the means of being initiated into the Church to share in these gifts is affected by the Spirit in the sacrament of baptism. The language of initiation, though, says little about the nature of the community into which we become initiates. What kind of fellowship does baptism draw us into? This is the question we will seek to elucidate by drawing out the implications of baptism as our initiation and focusing on baptism as constitutive of the Church. We will proceed under the assumption that in so doing we are articulating the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Correlatively we will mention throughout what baptism implicates for Christian discipleship and formation.

Baptism is a symbol but to describe it as so is not to reduce the sacrament but instead presupposes a distinction from other types of signs. It is a sign that has the function of bringing us into the reality that it symbolizes. In other words, baptism not only symbolizes our initiation into the Church but also is the true means by which we are initiated. This initiation occurs through the Holy Spirit, who in the sacrament binds us to Christ. Being bound to Christ we are therefore bound to the perfectly obedient Son of God, who as such is the Israel of God perfectly adequated to Yahweh’s calling of Israel. This becomes the hermeneutical pivot upon which baptism as initiation must function. Our initiation into the Church in baptism is the act of the Holy Spirit binding us to the Israel of God and in so doing also binds us to Yahweh. Thus, we must conspicuously avoid any speech concerning baptism that neglects to speak about Israel.

Speaking of baptism as the act of being bound to Christ through the Spirit thus entails initiation into fellowship with others. First, we are initiated in the story and people of Israel. The story of Israel becomes our story (i.e. the Gentiles) in so far as the Jew Jesus has invited us. Furthermore, we are initiated into fellowship with all the baptized, which necessitates fellowship with all believers in Christ. The basis of this fellowship rests upon the person of Jesus Christ. This is not a fellowship that is grounded in the brother/sisterhood of all humanity but instead is mediated by Christ. We are bound to one another because the Spirit binds us to Christ. Our fellowship thereby exists in Christ and is grounded in his identity. This is the manner by which we are initiated but it only begins to reveal the nature of the community of initiates. Thus, we must also say that by being bound to the Israel of God we come to share in the election of Israel. The nature of this election overlaps with the nature of the Christian fellowship in that it is the very election that Jew and Gentile come to share.

As we utilize the language of election we are necessarily articulating an aspect of the doctrine of God. The election of Israel is revelatory of the inner life of God, and the economy of God in history is the unfolding of this revelation. God brings forth the people of Israel by the calling of Abram. This calling forth occurs through the Spirit and begets the son of God, Israel. Thus establishing a covenant, God offers Godself to this people and Israel is called to respond perfectly to God’s call. God’s covenant with this people is pure grace, and God seeks from Israel a human response adequated to the divine call. God condescends to be identified with this people and God’s presence in this people is unique in relation to his presence in all creation. He chooses to dwell in this “location”. The covenantal relationship thus is a dynamic one in which God makes Godself vulnerable by binding Godself to Israel. This is a scandalous move for God and results in the history of Israel’s vacillating disobedience and obedience.

Through their disobedience Israel is revelatory of God imperfectly. The intention behind Isreal’s election is the manifestation of God’s love to the world. Israel’s election ought to witness to the world that Israel’s God is their God too. The incarnation of Jesus is filled out as the perfect human response to God’s divine call and thus Jesus is Israel in fulfillment. He is the perfect response inasmuch as he is the Israel of God, brought forth in the presence of the Spirit. He is the culmination of Israel’s history and is the proper witness to God’s intention in election. The perfect obedience of the Son brings him inevitably to the cross, to death, to the place of humanity’s deepest estrangement from God. Karl Barth said that “in becoming man God makes Himself responsible for man who became His enemy, and that He takes upon Himself all the consequences of man’s action – his rejection and his death.” By rejecting God humanity seals itself off from God, grounding its existence in itself. This leads to the dissolution of humanity, which finds its ultimate Godforsakenness in death. This is the “consequences of man’s action” that Christ takes unto himself. Through inhabiting this Godforsakenness Christ overcomes it.

It is at this very moment of Godforsakenness that the moment of baptism occurs. In baptism we enter death with Christ, through the Spirit, who in taking upon our Godforsakenness has brought it into the life of God and freed us from our attempt to seal ourselves off from God. Entering baptism at this moment we eschew the “old man”, as Luther calls it, and we enter a new modality of existence constituted by Christ, through the Spirit. Being buried in his death, we therefore “walk in newness of life.” This becomes the normative manner in which Christian existence articulates itself; that is, “from slavery to freedom, from fear to boldness, from death to life, from darkness to light, from selfishness to generous love, in the pattern of the living Lord Jesus and as guided by the Holy Spirit.”

We can thus say that baptism not only initiates us into the fellowship of Christ, but also is constitutive of that fellowship. It establishes the character of fellowship and contains the new existence into which we are drawn. It does so because in baptism we receive, through the Spirit, Christ in his fullness. The baptismal moment is complete. In it we are forgiven, purified, and brought to new life. The baptized are drawn out of the world and into the story of Israel, which is perfectly narrated in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. As Johnson says, to grow in the Spirit means “understanding ever more deeply and enacting ever more consistently the gift that has been given us by God.” God’s gift to us is complete. Christ is given to us wholly, yet the reality of our baptism must be filled out in discipleship. This is what Johnson means when he says that growing in the Spirit is enacting the gift of baptism more consistently. The life of Christian discipleship can be seen as the reenactment of the Spirit’s work in baptism. Yet even this reenactment takes place under the auspice of the Spirit, who continually draws us into the depth of the baptismal waters. We can make this claim about the sufficiency of baptism because its validity is God’s prerogative, not ours. Thus, baptism always remains valid but one may embrace or resist its reality.

The description of baptism as constitutive of the reality into which we are drawn presses us to inquire as to how baptism is to be resisted or embraced. Resistance to baptism consists in the refusal to reject the powers of nationalism, racism, violence, sexism, and economics. To resist is to cling to a modality of existence that is passing away, a modality already under the lordship of Christ and one that is passing away in lieu of the reign of God being unleashed through the Spirit. Embracing baptism is embracing Christ through the Spirit, and therefore is openness to the social ethic that Jesus is. In order to embrace baptism one must learn repentance. Repentance is not only the confession of our sinful modality but is active rejection of that modality. In the ancient liturgies prior to baptism the catechumens would turn to the West and reject Satan and his powers. This is repentance, and the waters of baptism require it. To live into our baptism requires that our life be different.

The modalities and powers we contend must be rejected function as to utilize wisdom and power in order to position oneself over against others. In contrast God’s wisdom and power are revealed at the cross of Christ, the place of ostensible weakness and abandonment. As Charry writes, “weakness voluntarily assumed to rescue others is spiritual nobility and strength, and […] military and political power reveal spiritual weakness […] True strength and power lie hidden in an executed has-been […] The point is that there has been a great reversal of power. In God’s own time, it will conquer the world.” This wisdom and power are embraced in repentance, and lead to a communal life characterized by forgiveness. Christ, who is our salvation, constitutes the Church’s life of forgiveness. We learn to forgive by being bound to the Father, in Christ, through the Spirit. We are drawn into the life of the God of Israel who endured Israel’s imperfect response with faithfulness and forgiveness. This forgiveness has been bestowed also upon the Gentile in the baptismal waters.

Baptism not only bestows forgiveness but through the Spirit generates the practice of forgiveness. We are able to forgive others because we recognize that we are truly sinners. We stand in relationship to one another only through Christ, and our “disillusionment” due to the sin of others, as Bonhoeffer calls it, serves to remind us of this truth. Staniloae similarly makes the claim that our union with Christ, which is the foundation of our fellowship of forgiveness, “can be lived only in the Holy Spirit, and that the experience of being in the Holy Spirit is nothing other than union with Christ.” Our baptismal union with Christ is the activity of the Holy Spirit, and by being bound to him we are formed into a people that see ourselves as inferior to one another. This is not psychological self-deprecation for it is instead the deep willingness to accept our sinfulness. Our hope remains in our union affected by the Spirit and refuses to be lodged in self-justification or sufficiency. The humble one recognizes that we are invited to share in a story that is not our own, and we are formed by that story. The story is one of self-giving, the self-giving of God, and the self-giving response of Israel in return. The giving of ourselves can be described also as service. Christian fellowship is a fellowship of service to one another.

This act of self-giving is a precarious one. In giving oneself one is made vulnerable. The vulnerability of this sort in the Church is reflected in the practice of bearing each other’s burdens. Through the Spirit we have been bound to Christ and thus we are bound to one another. Sharing in one another’s burdens results from inhabiting that union. For in baptism we are bound to people who are not like us, we enter fellowship with people who do not look like us. We bear the burden of the stranger, who is no longer feared but loved. Our attention is turned to the alien, the needy, and the oppressed. Christian existence is deeply formed by this association, for when one in the body of Christ is oppressed all are oppressed. We are compelled to traverse the land of desolation, despair, and abandonment because in his perfect obedience as the Israel of God Jesus entered the depths of human isolation. Where Christ chooses to dwell so also does his Church dwell. This is the miracle and the gift of baptism.

Undoubtedly the most oft repeated phrase in this essay has been “through the Spirit.” This is not said tepidly but is the attempt to make explicit the presupposed activity of the Spirit in all we have discussed. Baptism is a miracle and a gift because the Holy Spirit makes it so. The waters are made holy and effectual because the Spirit descends upon them. Any explication of baptism is by definition an articulation of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. We began our exploration by positing the question of the nature of the community into which baptism initiates us. Our articulation determined that baptism is the initiation into a community of fellowship that is defined by the sacrament of baptism itself. Baptism draws us out of one modality of existence and into another, a new modality contained in Christ himself. To describe baptism as a punctiliar moment would therefore be inadequate. Instead, the Christian community is formed by ever deepening its knowledge and practice of the reality of its baptism. This baptism rejects the artificial boundaries of nation-states, and crushes biological distinctions among persons. Our public language must therefore be conditioned by our baptism. What does our baptism cause us to say about illegal immigration? What does our baptism cause us to say about unmitigated violence in Iraq, Darfur, and the other places where the power of militarism ostensibly reigns? May we be ever faithful and diligent as we attempt live in the reality that in Christ we are one, and as one we are Christ.

cf. Dr. J. Kameron Carter, Lecture #17
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1954), 21.
Ibid. 36.
cf. Dr. J. Kameron Carter, Lecture #11.
cf. Dr. J. Kameron Carter, Lecture #4.
Michael Wyschogrod, “Incarnation,” Pro Ecclesia, 2 (Spring 1993): 212.
cf. Dr. J. Kameron Carter, Lecture #15.
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics. ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance, "The Election of Jesus Christ" (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1957), 124.
Martin Luther, The Large Catechism. trans. Robert H. Fischer (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 89.
John Calvin, Instructions in Faith. trans. Paul T. Fuhrmann (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press 1992), 67.
Luke Timothy Johnson, The Creed (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 278.
Letty M. Russell, Essentials of Christian Theology. ed. William C. Placher, "Why Bother with Church?" (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), 252.
Luke Timothy Johnson, The Creed (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 278.
cf. Brian Bantum’s Lecture on Baptism.
Martin Luther, The Large Catechism. trans. Robert H. Fischer (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 88.
Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), 43.
cf. Brian Bantum’s Lecture on Baptism.
Ellen T. Charry, Essentials of Christian Theology. ed. William C. Placher, "How Should We Live?" (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), 266-267.
Luke Timothy Johnson, The Creed (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 281.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1954), 28.
Dumitru Staniloae, Theology and the Church. trans. Robert Barringer (New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1980), 14.
cf. Brian Bantum’s Lecture on Baptism.

Quotables

2007-10-12T02:52:00.000-04:00

"If the teachers of predestination were right when they spoke always of a duality, of election and reprobation, of predestination to salvation or perdition, to life or death, then we may say already that in the election of Jesus Christ which is the eternal will of God, God has ascribed to man the former, election, salvation and life; and to Himself He has ascribed the latter, reprobation, perdition and death [...] The risk and threat is the portion which the Son of God, i.e., God Himself, has chosen for His own."

"For if God Himself became man, this man (i.e. the lost man, traitor, enemy, adversary), what else can this mean but that He declared Himself guilty of the contradiction against Himself in which man was involved; that He submitted Himself to the law of creation by which such a contradiction could be accompanied by loss and destruction; that He made Himself the object of the wrath and judgment to which man had brought himself, that He took upon Himself the rejection which man had deserved; that He tasted Himself the damnation, death and hell which ought to have been the portion of fallen man? [...] He elected our rejection. He made it His own. He bore it and suffered it with all its most bitter consequences. For the sake of this choice and for the sake of man He hazarded Himself wholly and utterly. He elected our suffering. He elected it as His own suffering."

-Karl Barth The Election of Jesus Christ

Durham...a Place I Call Home

2007-09-04T08:20:00.000-04:00

As many of you know I have finally made it to Durham, North Carolina! My tenure at Duke Divinity School has begun and I couldn't be more pleased. The Div school is phenomenal in all the ways the word phenomenal falls short. Sitting under the pedagogy of people such as Stanley Hauerwas and Richard Hays is impressive, but the entire faculty is distinguished. All of my current professors have surpassed any expectations I have may have held entering the Div school. In short, I'm loving the academic environment here. Not to mention, of course, that the Div school knows how to have fun outside of the classroom as well. String together cookouts, dance clubs, tailgating, and Div school parties and you've got an idea of what my first week here looked like. Basically, Durham is the best place on earth. Here's a look at what my semester looks like:

Church History 13: Early and Medieval Christianity with Dr. J. Warren Smith.
I'll be reading:

Anselm of Canterbury, The Major Works.
Athanasius, On the Incarnation.
Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions.
J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines.
Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert Sayings of the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century.
Origen, Commentary on the Gospel according to John.
William Placher, A History of Christian Theology an Introduction.

Introduction to Christian Theology CT 32 with Dr. J. Kameron Carter.
I'll be reading:

Barth, Karl. Prayer.
Bonhoeffer, D. Life Together.
Calvin, John. Instruction in Faith (1537), ed. and trans. Paul T. Fuhrmann.
Johnson, Luke Timothy. The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why it Matters.
Luther, Martin. Large Catechism, ed. and trans. Robert Fischer.
Merchant, Carolyn. Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture.
Placher, William C. (ed.) Essentials of Christian Theology.
Thurman, Howard. Jesus and the Disinherited.

Making Disciples in the Wesleyan Tradition PAR 148 with Dr. Paul W. Chilcote.
I'll be reading:

Paul Chilcote, Changed from Glory into Glory.
Paul Chilcote, The Wesleyan Tradition.
Francis MacNutt, Healing.
Sondra Matthaei, Making Disciples.
Robert Mulholland, Shaped by the Word.
Christine Pohl, Making Room.
Mark Stamm, Sacraments and Discipleship.

Introduction to Old Testament Interpretation OT11 with Dr. Stephen B. Chapman.
I'll be reading:

Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation.
Abraham J. Heschel, The Sabbath.
Mariano Magrassi, Praying the Bible.
Victor H. Matthews, A Brief History of Ancient Israel.
Richard D. Nelson, The Historical Books.
James B. Pritchard, The HaperCollins Concise Atlas of the Bible.
Gordon J. Wenham, Story as Torah: Reading Old Testament Narrative Ethically.
R. Norman Whybray, Introduction to the Pentateuch.

Basically, I've got a lot ahead of me but it's quite exciting! I'm not sure yet what the status of this blog will be but I'm hoping to at least post relatively frequently. If you're really lucky perhaps I'll even post some of my shorter papers...oooh, fun!

Quotables

2007-08-10T22:08:00.000-04:00

"Another hallmark of Christianity is that salvation is not individualistic; it’s not something one person receives for himself or herself. Salvation is the reign of God. It is a political alternative to the way the world is constituted. That is a very important part of the story that has been lost to accounts of salvation that are centered on the individual. But without an understanding that salvation is the reign of God, the need for the Church to mediate salvation makes no sense at all."

-Stanley Hauerwas

Quotables

2007-07-04T11:11:00.000-04:00

"Parents are more than happy to raise their children to grow up to make up their own mind whether they will be Christians or not. Parents do not raise their children to think that they have an option about whether they will kill or not kill for the United States of America."
-Stanley Hauerwas, "Sacrificing the Sacrifices of War"

Discipleship as Political Responsibility

2007-06-10T22:34:00.000-04:00

John Howard Yoder’s magnificent insight in Discipleship as Political Responsibility is more than it’s compact size might imply. Although this book is merely a forerunner to Yoder’s more developed thought it is nonetheless an important contribution to understanding both Yoder and the positions he advocates. The book is split into two primary sections which were both first published as essays in 1957.

The first sections, The State in the New Testaments, seeks to discover what they New Testament says about the state, and secondarily what this means for how Christians are to interact with the state. Yoder understands the New Testament to claim that the mandate for the state is found within the mandate for the Church. God has ordained the state in order to keep relative order. God does not view the violence or selfishness of the state (or humanity) as a good thing but permits the state to use evil against itself in order to restrain itself.

The state is understood as being “pagan” or at least “non-Christian”. We must also realize that the New Testament does not speak about the state in the way that we understand the state. The primary state function in the New Testament is the sword-function. The Early Church also understood the state as belonging to the order of “principalities” and “dominions” that Christ had defeated. “The early church respected the state and made room for the state, yet they did not do so because they viewed it as a part of God’s good creation. On the contrary, they viewed it as part of the world God opposes, that is already defeated by Christ in principle, and over which the exalted Christ already rules until he has defeated his last enemy.” (20)

The Church is called to praise God; to proclaim the Gospel, live acts of love, and to witness to the virtue of Jesus Christ. The early church viewed the way of the cross not as something “tacked on” to salvation but as part of Christ’s saving work. The Church’s responsibility regarding the state is “to pray for political leaders and for peace, because God desires everyone to be saved.” (22) “The mandate of the Church, the mandate to overcome evil, is the superior mandate; the mandate of the state, that of keeping evil in check, only has meaning because the Church is accomplishing its mission.” (23) The Church clearly has a superior role and this role is seen in light of what Yoder calls the old and new aeon. The state belongs to the order of the old aeon. This order has been defeated by Christ but still exists under the lordship of Christ. The Church belongs to the new aeon, although these aeons overlap. Within this framework we can see how the task of the Church has superiority, since it belongs to the new aeon constituted by God’s redemptive purpose for humanity. The task of the state is merely temporary and has already been subjected to Christ. The existence of the Church is proof of this subjection.

This covers only a minor portion of the book, but are the implications of Yoder's articulation of the New Testament understanding of the state? What might this mean for us in our relation to the American state?

Quotables

2007-06-05T13:26:00.001-04:00

"Every time Christians make a fetish of the family you can be sure they don't believe in God anymore. Because they don't want to witness to anyone about the truth of the Gospel they just want to make sure their kids grow up thinking they don't have an alternative but to go to[...]church."
Stanley Hauerwas, Lecture on the Sermon on the Mount at Wheaton College