Reflections on Passion Week: Good Friday

    The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.
          --T.S. Eliot, East Coker

There is nothing remotely new that I could possibly write concerning the events of Jesus' trial and crucifixion. But in the vein of re-reminding us of how revolutionary Jesus' message had been in its original context, and how unsurprising it is, after all, that his message and actions would lead to his rejection, not only by the religious leaders, but by the people as well, it might be well for us to remember how odd and unexpected and unfitting would have been crucifixion as the mode of God's redeeming humanity. It's so easy for us now to parrot, "Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose again on the third day." We forget that neither the Jews nor anyone else could possibly have expected this. As Paul writes to the Romans, "we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles," (1 Cor. 1:23).

The Messiah was the hope of Israel's deliverance from foreign domination. To be crucified by that same foreign power would have been the last thing the Jews would have been looking for in their Messiah, and if they had truly thought he was the Messiah, they would not have delivered him over to Pilate or cried out for his crucifixion. Actually being crucified, if there were any doubt, would have disqualified him in the eyes of the Law: "anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse," (Deut. 21:23).

For the Greeks and Romans, the idea of a crucified god was the height of idiocy: paganism worshiped beauty, honor, and power, not weakness, helplessness, and shame. The pagan philosopher Celsus mocks the very idea:

You acknowledge that he openly suffered. How is it credible that Jesus could have predicted these things? How could the dead man be immortal? What god, or spirit, or prudent man would not, on foreseeing that such events were to befall him, avoid them if he could; whereas he threw himself headlong into those things which he knew beforehand were to happen?...

So the crucifixion makes no sense either to Jews or to pagans. And yet, this is the means by which God chose to save the world. It made no sense. The nonsensical nature of it should not be lost on us today. Because we've come into a time in which the crucifixion is once again nonsensical. But it nonetheless woke the hearts of many, even as it brought the scorn of some, and so may it do today. Let's not be afraid of the foolishness of the Gospel. It's wiser than the wisdom of humanity.

Ben Witherington on Pagan Christianity

Ben Witherington has just completed a four-part review of George Barna and Frank Viola's Pagan Christianity. I should note from the outset that I have not read Barna and Viola's book, so my response to Dr. Witherington's review might not be fair to them. Nonetheless, the book appears to embody many contemporary criticisms of the "institutional church," and so I read Witherington's response as a critique of that overall mindset. Some quotes will illustrate where he is going with this:

From Part 1:

Like Dan Brown’s novel, the Da Vinci Code, Constantine is painted as ‘Bad Bart’ the person who messed things up in Pagan Christianity. He is called on p.18 the father of the church building, which is giving him far too much credit. He did of course take Christianity off the illicit religion list, and he and his mother became the patrons of the building of various churches including in the Holy Land, but it is simply false to say that there were no church buildings long before Constantine. It will not do to make him the bad guy who ruined pristine and pure early Christianity.

From Part 2:

And categorical statements like “Let’s face it. The Protestant order of worship is largely unscriptural, impractical, and unspiritual.” (p. 77), is not only an uncharitable remark. It’s Biblically inaccurate.

An actual study of worship in the Bible would recognize that there is indeed both order and space in worship, both liturgy and creativity, both leading and following. When Paul describes worship in 1 Cor. 8-14 he is largely critiquing the lack of order and structure in the service there, not baptizing it and calling it good. 1 Corinthians is a problem solving letter, and when one takes the problematic model and makes that a template for modern Christian worship—that in itself becomes a problem.

From Part 3:

The sermon is not an invention of Protestants over the course of the last five centuries. No one who has actually read the sermons of Chysostom or Ambrose or Augustine or a host of other Church Fathers could ever make a silly assertion like that. And furthermore, I would stress once more, the use of rhetoric already was in play in the Diaspora synagogues, which is one of the reasons why Paul's rhetoric was sometimes well received, at least initially in such synagogues. The writers of the NT are almost without exception Jews, not former pagans, and almost without exception they use not only the Greek language they had long since learned but the Greco-Roman rhetoric that was a part of elementary education all over the Empire, including in Jerusalem!

From Part 4:

Certain persons certainly were appointed to regularly do certain functions in earliest Christianity. That is what the Pastoral Epistles not merely imply but say, and Timothy and Titus are clear examples of this. Of course this goes strongly against the 'everyone gets to do anything they feel led to do since they are part of the priesthood of all believers' approach, but then, as I have said, the priesthood of all believers language has nothing whatsoever to do with deciding who gets to be teachers, prophets, elders etc. Those issues are determined by whom the Spirit gifts and graces for such tasks, and whom are recognized by the church to have such gifts and graces.

Dr. Witherington's critique is very much needed as a counterbalance to the idea that the problem with the church today is that we're simply doing it wrong, and if we'd just do it right--meaning in houses, with no meeting structure, no clergy, and everyone participating however they want--then the problems would be solved. Witherington clearly demonstrates that what we do in church does in fact go back to the early church and biblical principles--even if there may be a need for examining how we've culturally adapted these practices; that "pagan roots of Christian practices" is largely a bogeyman; and that the idea of a pristine "early church" without any cultural baggage to muck it up is a product of wishful thinking.

The original series goes into a lot more detail, and it's well worth reading. Check it out.

Rethinking the Reformation

It's a little late to be talking about Hallo Reformation Day, but Michael Spencer's post is really more about how we should view the Reformation itself. A few highlights:

• I no longer believe Luther ever intended to slay the Catholic Church and establish the wonder of contemporary Protestantism.
• I do not believe true Christianity was restored or rediscovered in the Reformation.
• I’m convinced that it didn’t take long for Protestantism to accumulate enough problems of its own to justify another reformation or two.
• I believe we ought to grieve the division of Christianity and the continuing division of Protestantism.
• I no longer believe the theology of the Reformers was the pinnacle of evangelicalism or is the standard by which Biblical truth itself is judged.

No argument here. I wrote about some of this earlier, in The Successes and Failures of the Reformation. It bears repeating, though, if only because of the increasing movement toward judging one's theology, if not one's actual salvation, by the litmus test of the theology of the Reformers.

I purposely left most of Michael's excellent list out. Check it out for yourself.


Technorati Tags: Michael Spencer, iMonk, Internet Monk, Reformation, Reformation Day

Augustine's Misunderstanding and Original Sin

Okay, I admit it. I've been drawn back in.

Peter Kirk writes an excellent post discussing the ramifications of Augustine's use of an inadequate translation in developing doctrine. (He is following Doug Chaplin's discussion of the subject.) Essentially, Augustine understood Romans 5:12 as "in whom all sinned," with the implication that we are all guilty, not merely of our own sins, but of Adam's; that we are born guilty of Adam's sin. This is the foundation of the doctrine of original sin, which is foundational to the doctrine of total depravity. However, all modern translations recognize that the Greek of Romans 5:12 is better rendered, "because all sinned"--Augustine was following an inadequate Latin translation at this point. Paul's point is not that we all sinned with Adam in the Garden of Eden, but that we have all sinned just as Adam sinned, and therefore we all need the gift of God's grace through the sacrifice of Jesus.

It is thought by some that denial of the extent to which Augustine pushed the doctrine of original sin (and thus total depravity) implies Pelagianism: that it would be possible for a person to justify himself without appeal to the sacrifice of Jesus, that we can and must work to merit God's favor, that we become co-participants in our own salvation. But this is not a necessary conclusion. Other scriptures make it clear that in fact we all have sinned, and that we cannot come to Jesus merely of our own accord. Nonetheless, the corollary to total depravity--that not only can we not come to God on our own, but we cannot even respond to the Gospel without God enabling us, and then we will unfailingly do so--is not taught in Scripture.

Not only does this bespeak of the dangers of using an inadequate translation; it bespeaks of the dangers of building doctrine on so narrow a foundation as a single interpretation of a single phrase.


Technorati Tags: translation, Romans 5:12, Peter Kirk, Doug Chaplin, Augustine, Original Sin, Total Depravity, Pelagianism

How Similar Is the Emerging Movement to the Jesus Movement?

Scot McKnight asks a very interesting question on Jesus Creed: "Is Emergence the 60s all over again?" Here's a sampling of the variety of responses that he's received:


Brad Boydston writes:

“Is Emergence the 60s all over again?” The answer is YES — but with more tattoos. I suppose that’s why some boomer types get annoyed with the whole thing. In hindsight they know how full of crap they were in the 60’s and then along comes a bunch of guys (mostly) who think they’ve just discovered the key to real Christianity — genuine community and “question authority.” And the growing-greyhair (or in the case of some, no-longer-growing-hair) realizes that the emerging crowd is as full of crap as they were. That realization is compounded by the fact that they know deep inside that they’re still processing all the pain they went through when their own 60’s style house church disbanded in 1976 — if it lasted that long. It’s all mostly the same old, same old stuff.

But that’s okay. Each generation in its youth seems to have to reinvent things. Then when they reach middle age they’re embarrassed by how arrogant they were back then. And it’s at that point that they have a fresh epiphany of the vastness of God’s grace and mercy. And they realize that all of the things which we hash and re-hash, while important, pale in significance to the generosity and forbearance of God.

So, my advice to the emerging generation (which is very very soon the post-emerging generation) is truck on with Jesus! You’re doing fine — and who knows, perhaps God will use you as he unfolds his kingdom. If nothing else you’ll be in a great position to extend grace to the next arrogant and crap-filled generation.

Julie Clawson writes:

My cynical response…



So what if it’s like the 60’s (or any other reform/visionary period)? If it makes some people feel okay about selling out to consumerism instead of trying to transform the world with God’s love by labeling (read dismissing) others that’s their issue. One of my biggest pet peeves is being told by some baby boomer that I’ll grow out of my idealistic passion. That I’ll live real life and be forced to return to self-centered conservative American evangelicalism I grew up in. They think that by telling me that others in history have tried to passionately pursue Christ but rightly let the love of comfort and money dissuade them of that passion will dissuade me as well. They tell me that I’m the one who needs to grow up and give up my passion for Christ because it just isn’t normal/mainstream. And I’m expected to accept the wisdom of their years and revert to whatever box they want to shove me into. That’s called growing up and being responsible…

And finally, Matthew Wilcoxen writes:

There are quite a few substantial differences that I see between the Jesus People movement of the 70’s and the Emergent movement of now. First of all, the Jesus People movement was, if I understand it correctly, largely “anti-intellectual.” Seminary became a Cemetery to these hippies. The Bible was all you needed and anything else was dead, putrefying “religion” or “tradition.” The Emergents on the other hand, while perhaps loathing systematic theology and the seminaries of what they see as a bygone era, are anything but anti-intellectual. They load up blogs and discuss scholarly works in their free time. Rather than dismiss everything from the past as “tradition” that kills, these emerging Christians welcome anything from the past as long as it isn’t in any way connected with the movements and institutions which spawned them.



The second difference I see is that the Jesus People Movement did not really push the envelope doctrinally at all. The one exception being, perhaps, that some of them loosened up and actually believed the parts about the Bible that talk about the Holy Spirit. For the most part, they took the doctrines that had been handed down to them, and took them to the streets and preached them with vigour. On the other hand, the Emergents are, some more than others, shoving the envelope quite radically. McLaren says that “..our interpretations reveal less about God or the Bible than they do about ourselves…” (A New Kind of Christian, p. 50). The Emergent movement seems to be questioning, largely, whether or not understanding theology in any definitive way is even possible. For this reason, we are seeing much in the theological realm that is more reactionary than it is revolutionary. (I hope this doesn’t seem vitriolic, please correct me if I’m wrong.) In sum on this point, the Jesus People turned out to be fundamentalists in hippie garb; the Emergents are willfully shaking any fundamentalism out of themselves as quickly as possible.



For my last point (I think that I could go on forever!), I will say that the Jesus People were proclamational and definitely “missional.” Their strong emphasis was preaching the gospel. If you meant someone who was part of this movement, chances are, you had been confronted with the truth of the gospel of their Jesus. They were strongly committed to being “witnesses” in the sense that they verbally told and retold the story of how God, in Jesus, had reconciled sinners to himself through the cross and “commands all men everywhere to repent.” What they wanted was a conversion of the heart and of the priorities and they would ask you to accept that converting work of God. Conversion was, to them, a sharp break with one’s past life. They were all about being “born again.” The Emergents, while committed to being “missional”, are not committed to evangelism, at least not in the same way. Since orthopraxy has taken over for orthodoxy, most Emergents are not as concerned wtih proclamational evangelism. Instead, they seek to model inclusion before conversion (something many Jesus People undoubtedly did as well). Conversion in the sense of a radical godward reorientation, a “born again” experience, is not the aim of Emergent missions. I could continue, but I think most will further recognize the contrast betweent the Jesus People Movement’s strong proclamation (understand: verbal) of Christ and the Emergent’s aversion to such proclamation.



In sum, I think the Emergent movement is a whole different type of movement when we compare the beliefs, convictions, and practices of it with the Jesus People movement of the 70’s.

I could find points of commonality with both Brad and Matthew. And I remember thinking like Julie. What do you think?

Baptism in the Didache

As a response to my post, "Faith Validates Baptism," I received an email from someone interested in the history of believer's baptism. One of the strongest arguments for paedobaptism is that it came early in the history of the church. I'm not sure it came as early as the Catholic and Orthodox churches would claim; evidence in the first few centuries is thin and ambiguous. Delaying baptism until one was on one's deathbed (e.g. Constantine) so that one could not sin after being baptized was also practiced in early years.

So far as I know, the earliest extra-biblical reference to baptism is in the Didache ("The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles," Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol 7 section 6), generally dated around AD 120. The whole passage reads as follows:

And concerning baptism, thus baptize ye: Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water. But if thou have not living water, baptize into other water; and if thou canst not in cold, in warm. But if thou have not either, pour out water thrice upon the head into the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. But before the baptism let the baptizer fast, and the baptized, and whatever others can; but thou shalt order the baptized to fast one or two days before.

Not that the Didache is authoritative, but it does give us some light on baptismal practices in the early post-Biblical era. What can we learn from it?

• Baptism was conducted using the formula Jesus gave in the Great Commission, not (as some churches hold, based on statements in the book of Acts) merely in the name of Jesus;
• Baptism was normally done by immersion; pouring is suggested as an alternate method if water (evidently meaning a sufficient quantity of water) is unavailable;
• Running water and cold water were to be preferred over still and warm water, perhaps for health reasons;
• There was some flexibility in the administration: it was considered better to be baptized in less-than-optimal conditions than to delay baptism;
• Baptism was evidently understood to be for believers, since the one being baptized is instructed to fast for one or two days prior.

Once again, the Didache is not authoritative, and it may not describe the baptismal practices of the church as a whole. Nonetheless, it does belie claims that "the whole church" had "always" practiced infant baptism until those crazy Anabaptists started re-baptizing one another in the sixteenth century.

The Successes and Failures of the Reformation

489 years ago, the world was changed by a someone tacking a notice up to a church bulletin board. Who knew?

Okay, it wasn't a bulletin board. But that was what the door of the church in Wittenburg was used for. Martin Luther couldn't possibly have imagined the impact. He was hoping to start a limited discussion to reform a specific abuse within the Church; he ended up unleashing a huge movement that irrevocably altered the nature of the church as a whole. And therein lie both the successes and the failures of the Reformation.

Luther's immediate concern was the issue of indulgences. He did not, at the time of posting the 95 Theses, challenge the authority of the Pope or the sacramental system. He was only beginning to come to an understanding of justification by faith through his reading of Galatians and Romans. The last thing he was looking for was to break off from the established church and start his own.

Yet all these things he did. It is seldom noted how much the Reformation illustrates the law of unintended consequences.

The Reformation breathed new life into a Christianity that had grown corrupt with wealth and worldly power. It established the Bible as the sole authority of Christian faith and practice, removing the power of the Church from that position. It reawakened an understanding of salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, independent of the mediation of the Church and its sacraments. It put the Bible back into the hands of the people so that they could have access to God's special revelation for themselves. It reduced, to some degree, the gulf separating clergy from laity, reestablished the dignity of all work (not just clerical work), and indirectly fueled a movement toward literacy and free enterprise that had profound socioeconomic effects on the modern world. Martin Luther was arguably the most influential person of the last millenium, and we should thank God for the wonderful things that his courage and insight have bequeathed upon us.

And yet.

The great benefits of the Reformation came at the expense of the division of the Church. For a millenium after the council of Acts 15, there was a sense that the church was a unity, that debates and disputes should be brought to councils and settled, so that Christianity could speak with one voice. Even after the division between East and West, there was still a sense that this was not how things should be, that the divided halves of the Church would one day be reconciled. Luther did not intend to break the Church again, but that is what his actions did. I do not argue that this was unnecessary, and it was not, after all, Luther who did the breaking; the Roman church broke him off, and with him, all those who saw the truth of what he was proclaiming. In the early years of the Reformation there was a dream of a unified Protestant movement, a new True Church raised up in opposition to the decadent false one, a dream that was shattered when Luther wrote on a table at Marburg, "This is my body."

The weak side of the sole authority of Scripture and the priesthood of all believers was the inability of these believers to come to unity on the meaning of Scripture. And once the precedent had been set to divide rather than compromise what one believes to be the truth, division became the hallmark of the Protestant movement. We have divided over the meaning and administration of the Lord's Supper and Baptism; we have divided over various forms of church government; we have divided over differing understandings of the respective roles of predestination and free will; we have divided over differing forms of church services, over differing understandings of spiritual gifts, over differing understandings of the role of believers in civil society. We have divided and divided and divided and divided. Is it any wonder that an unbelieving world increasingly says, "A pox on all your houses"?

What all this division has accomplished, in the long run, is the inability of the Church to function in a unified way to accomplish the goals set out for it by God through Scripture. One of the things that the Reformation did was to change our understanding of the nature of the universal (once called catholic) Church. We pay lip service to the idea that The Church of True Believers as God Sees It is spiritually unified; pity that there is no evidence of it on the ground. Most of our cities are dotted with small churches, each struggling for survival, each competing for its share of the shrinking portion of the population that thinks that Christianity has anything meaningful to say to contemporary life. If only we could find a way to work together! If only we could offer the unbeliever one choice, not dozens!

I don't have an answer. I am a Protestant; I believe in sola scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia. I am deeply grateful to Martin Luther, to William Tyndale, to John Wesley, to them and countless others that struggled, were persecuted, and in some cases died, to give me a Bible in my own language to read and the understanding of access to God and forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ alone. But as a result of being a Protestant, I belong to a particular church that has a particular position on all the topics I have listed above. There is no way, in the contemporary context, to put Humpty Dumpty together again.

The great failure of the Reformation was simply that it didn't actually reform anything. It created something new, in which people who believed something different could have a place to exercise that belief. But it didn't create the opportunity for people who have differing doctrinal convictions to be able to work through those convictions, perhaps come to a mediating position, and perhaps find unity and continue to worship together.

Perhaps we need a new Reformation, to tie up the loose ends of the old one. With that thought in mind, Happy Reformation Day.

Emerging Creedalism?

Scot McKnight makes an appeal for use of the historic creeds of Christendom as a means of defining the faith. The purpose is ecumenical--to unite behind what the church has always believed and what all Christians can affirm, rather than to make a more narrow sectarian definition that defines other believers out. He compares the Nicene Creed, a fundamentalist church statement of faith, an evangelical church statement of faith, and the statement of faith of the church founded by Brian McLaren.

I applaud the impulse behind this appeal. It is good for us to find something in our history which we can agree on and by which we can identify other Christians, regardless of theological differences. On an individual level, and even in informal community life, this may be positive and even sufficient. Unfortunately, I think Scot ignores the realities of creedal development, of subsequent history, and of the purpose and use of church statements of faith.

Scot puts forward the Nicene Creed as a model of simplicity and a statement of basic orthodoxy. He also acknowledges that it is the earliest of the classical creeds he would choose, others being Chalcedon or Nicean-Constantinopolitan. This implicitly acknowledges that even in the church of that time, the Nicene creed was not felt to be sufficient. Creedal development could and did go on, because the impetus behind all the creeds--theological developments that were felt by some to be outside the bounds of scriptural warrant--continued to occur. The creeds were always about "defining others out," whether those others were Docetists or Arians or Monophysites or whatever. Even the choice of which creed to use is a choice regarding

The attempt to go back to a historic creed also seems to ignore or deny all further theological development. If issues have not yet been raised in the church, then of course they need not be addressed in our statements of faith. Once they have been raised, however, there is a tendency to want to bury our heads in the sand and ignore them. Can't we all just get along? We need to be clear about what we are doing here. If we are saying, "This is the core of the faith. I hold this in common with all other believers," then I am in full agreement. But if we are saying, "This is what I believe and all I believe; everything else is irrelevant," then I can't buy it. We all hold opinions about theological issues that have divided Christians throughout history (even if we hold them unconsciously, having been only exposed to one view). Leaving opinions unarticulated leads to a lack of self-awareness at best and dishonesty at worst.

This also touches on the purpose and use of local church and denominational statements of faith. Most of these statements do not presume to say, "One must believe this in order to be a Christian." Most of them, rather, exist to make clear the position and reason for existence of a particular body of believers. "This is who we are, this is where we are at, this is why we worship the way we worship and teach the way we teach." The splintering of the Church Universal is, of course, a Bad Thing, but it is a fait accompli at this point, and the one positive element in it is allowing Christians of differing points of view to coexist as Christians - albeit with much less unity than one would like - rather than the earlier case of excommunicating one another when we understand scripture differently. So differerent groups should be able to explain what their differences are - in fact, I'd argue, have a duty to do so, so that someone coming into the group can avoid being blindsided by hidden presuppositions.

So, again, the creeds are good to identify how we can accept one another in the Faith, but not good as an expression of full 21st century theological understanding. Some have argued that we shouldn't be wedded to a 16th century theology; it doesn't help to be wedded to a 4th century theology instead.