The End of the Spiritual Life

No, not my spiritual life. Just the ten-week class I taught. Tuesday was the last day of the class.

Teaching this class has been one of the most valuable things that I have done in recent memory. I think the reason that I enjoyed it so much was because it forced me to get out of theoretical models of spiritual growth and into what has worked for me. I had to wrestle with questions like, "How does God really work in my life?" and "How do people really change?"

Sometimes I feel that churches are a lot like the Land of Oz and pastors are like the Wizard. All my life I had this notion that the spiritual life was about "victorious Christian living." I read in the Bible and I heard in church that Christianity was this dynamic relationship with God. Everyone in church talked about how wonderful Jesus was and great it was to have a personal relationship with him.

Now, I had a nagging sensation that God was out there, but I didn't experience anything close to what most of the people in my church were talking about. I assumed it was my fault. Maybe I wasn't praying enough. Maybe I wasn't reading my Bible enough. Maybe I needed to witness more and buy more Christian trinkets.

So I did all that stuff.

And it didn't work.

Then I went to college and seminary and studied Reformed theology. It was new and different and exciting and intellectual. It had Bible verses for everything. It was air-tight. What's that? You're an Arminian? You must not read your Bible! What's that? You had a spiritual experience? Everyone knows our experiences are subjective. You can't base your faith on that! Come, read this Bible verse and find out what your faith experience should look like.

Now, I have a lot of respect for Reformed theology and theologians. I give it a hard time, but I do it in the same way that Jeff Foxworthy makes fun of rednecks.

But my main beef with Reformed theology is that it doesn't work. Sure, they have a Bible verse for everything and a fantastic explanation of God's sweeping purpose for the universe and how that should play out in my personal life. But I find that their explanations of the way the spiritual life should work have no correspondence to the way life does work. Or at least the way my life works.

Going to seminary was like peeking behind the curtain at the Wizard of Oz. When I say that, I don't mean the part about going to class; I mean the part about living with other seminary students. These people were to be leaders of spiritual communities across the globe, and yet they acted like everyone else. I guess I had always thought that even if I wasn't experiencing spiritual bliss, even if I wasn't living victoriously, there was someone out there who was. Most of the time, I thought that person was my pastor. When I lived with 1000 other future pastors, I realized that a lot of the stories we told about normative Christian living were fantasies. The Wizard of Oz wasn't as great and powerful as everyone made him out to be.

I don't want to use smoke and mirrors to promote a fantasy. I don't want to preach a message that isn't true to my life. I don't want my sermons to be what Caedmon's Call refers to as "an expensive ad for something cheap." So, as I put together the curriculum for the Spiritual Life class, I was forced to wrestle with the question of what was normative for the Christian experience. I found my answers in N.T. Wright, James Dunn, Gordon Fee, Philip Yancey, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and others.

Ultimately, I think the Christian life boils down to a couple of things--read your Bible, pray, hang out with other Christians, and take the kingdom of God to the world. I have found that people change when they do two things: (1) they decide they really want to change (i.e. repentance), and (2) they find accountability (i.e. confession).

Is God active in our world in our lives? Absolutely. Does e really change people? Without a doubt. Is the Christian life one of "victory" and "bliss"? Not in my experience. That's why I hope for something more (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Gordon Fee on the Holy Spirit 7 (Last One)

Having just finished Gordon Fee's, God's Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul, I thought it might be cool to do a series of posts featuring quotes from the book on the Holy Spirit.

In this final quote from Fee, he discusses the role of prayer in Paul’s “Spirit-uality.”

Prayer, therefore, is not simply our cry of desperation or our 'grocery list' of requests that we bring before our heavenly Abba; prayer is an activity inspired by God himself, through his Holy Spirit. It is God siding with his people and, by his own empowering presence, the Spirit of God himself, bringing forth prayer that is in keeping with his will and his ways.

It is probably impossible to understand Paul as a theologian, if one does not take this dimension of his 'Spirit-uality' with full seriousness. A prayerless life is one of practical atheism. As one who himself lived in and by the Spirit, Paul understood prayer in particular to be the special prompting of the Spirit, leading him to thanksgiving for others and petition 'in the Spirit,' even when he did not know for what specifically to pray. Whatever else 'life in the Spirit' meant for Paul, it meant a life devoted to prayer, accompanied by joy and thanksgiving. (867–868)

Good stuff. I love the line about the prayerless life and practical atheism.

This is the final post about Fee’s book. Like I said, it is one of the best NT theology books I’ve ever read.

Holistic Spirituality

The final lesson in my Spiritual Life class was on holistic spirituality. I thought of some things to say, but then I watched Rob Bell's Everything Is Spiritual and I thought, "Wow. This guy says it way better than I ever could." So, we watched the movie instead.

In the movie, Bell says (I am paraphrasing), "While I won't deny that something special happens when God's people come together to worship, I think sometimes our emphasis on God being there makes us forget that God is here." In other words, while God may be present in a special way when the church gathers together to worship, we can't forget that everything that we do is a spiritual act (1 Corinthians 10:31). We can't compartmentalize our lives into "spiritual things" and "not spiritual things."

One of my favorite lines in the movie is when Bell says (again paraphrasing), "So you can't say, 'I'm just not in to spiritual things.' Are you human? . . . Too late! The issue isn't whether you are spiritual; it's whether your eyes are open to see it."

The Outward Disciplines (The Spiritual Life and Mission)

We talked about "outward" or "missional" disciplines last Tuesday in my Spiritual Life class. We considered the issue of how disciplines relate to mission.

In Finding Our Way Again, Brian McLaren lists four interpretations of God's mission (the list was not meant to be exhaustive, but illustrative).

A. God wants to heal the world. In order to do so, God recruits coworkers who must be healthy so they don't spread more sickness, and health care workers so they don't just keep good health to themselves. Unfortunately, there are no completely healthy people for God to work with. So in the spiritual formation process, God starts with unhealthy people and first helps them become healthier, so they can be put to work bringing health to others, and to the world.

B. God wants to heal individuals. Individuals (we might call them "souls") are God's primary concern. If there are more and more healthy individuals, the world will become a healthier place as a by-product.

C. God only cares about the world. You as an individual don't really count. Your private or personal life is your private or personal concern; just be sure you vote and work for social justice (or the spread of capitalism, communism, liberalism, or conservatism, whatever).

D. God only cares about the individual. This whole world will soon be disposed of, so all that matters are individual soals.

Which of these sounds best to you, and how does your decision affect your view of spiritual formation and/or disciplines?

Gordon Fee on the Holy Spirit 6

Having just finished Gordon Fee's, God's Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul, I thought it might be cool to do a series of posts featuring quotes from the book on the Holy Spirit.

In this passage, Fee discusses Galatians 5:16–18, “But I say, live by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. For the flesh has desires that are opposed to the Spirit, and the Spirit has desires that are opposed to the flesh, for these are in opposition to each other, so that you cannot do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”

That leads finally to the question that is less exegetical than existential. 'That is all fine and good,' it is often said, 'but how does one go about walking in the Spirit' so as not to live from the perspective of the flesh? The best answer to that question is still the exegetical one, not the existential or formulaic one. Paul, of course, is speaking from within a historical context in which the Spirit was the primary, experienced reality in the Christian life, as 3:2–5 has made plain. This appeal to the Galatians, therefore, is just that, an appeal to 'go on walking by the very same Spirit by which you came to faith and with whom God still richly supplies you, including by the working of miracles in your midst.' That is, a powerful and experiential--supernatural, if you will--presuppositional base lies behind this imperative.

But it comes by way of imperative, not by way of passive indicative (as in v. 18). Life in the Spirit is not passive submission to the Spirit to do a supernatural work in one's life; rather, it requires conscious effort, so that the indwelling Spirit may accomplish his ends in one's life. One is urged to 'walk by the Spirit' or 'live by the Spirit' by deliberately 'conforming one's life to the Spirit' (v. 25). If such a person is also described as being 'led by the Spirit,' that does no mean passively; it means to rise up and follow the Spirit by walking in obedience to the Spirit's desire. (433)

Fee makes a great point that the command “walk by the Spirit” is an imperative and not a passive indicative (“you will be led by the Spirit”).

One of the things that I struggle with in Reformed theology and other monergistic systems is the question, “Why does Christian A grow when Christian B does not?” In a monergistic system, the answer has to be “Because God empowers Christian A to grow and He does not empower Christian B to grow.” That sucks for Christian B.

I think Galatians 5 shows that Paul was more synergistic in his understanding of spiritual growth. Sure, spirituality is a work of the Spirit. We can’t grow ourselves by shear will power. But we can resist the Spirit, and we do have the responsibility to walk in the Spirit.

Gordon Fee on the Holy Spirit 5

Having just finished Gordon Fee's, God's Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul, I thought it might be cool to do a series of posts featuring quotes from the book on the Holy Spirit.

In this passage, Fee is introducing Spirit theology in the Book of Galatians. He mentions Galatians 6:8, “because the person who sows to his own flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit” (NET). He also discusses Galatians 5:18–24:

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, depravity, idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factions, envying, murder, drunkenness, carousing, and similar things. I am warning you, as I had warned you before: Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God! But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (NET)

Fee writes:

But for Paul all is not automatic. One must sow to the Spirit (6:8) and be led by the Spirit (5:18); indeed, 'if we live [= have been brought to life after the crucifixion of the flesh, v. 24] by the Spirit,' we must therefore also 'accordingly behave by the Spirit' (v. 25). Thus the Spirit not only stands at the beginning of Christian existence, but is the key ingredient to Paul's understanding of the whole of that existence. Accordingly, the final argument (5:13–6:10) becomes one of the most significant in the corpus for our understanding of Pauline ethics as Spirit-empowered Christ-likeness lived out in Christian community as loving servanthood. (370)

Fee makes the great point that even though the Holy Spirit is the sole cause of spiritual growth in the Christian (he calls it “Spirit-empowered Christ-likeness”), all is not automatic. The believer is called to “sow to the Spirit” and “live according to the Spirit.”

In my spiritual life class, I used gardening as an illustration. There is nothing that we can do to “make” a plant grow. Plants grow according to the wonder of Creation. However, there is much we can do to sabotage a plant’s growth. Without water, proper sunlight, and good soil, a plant isn’t going to grow. Likewise, we have a responsibility to make sure that we are getting plenty of water, sunlight and soil so that the Holy Spirit can work in us for Christ-likeness.

What do you think of the analogy and Fee’s description of spiritual growth as “Spirit-empowered Christ-likeness lived out in Christian community as loving servanthood”?

The Spiritual Life and the Church

In his book It Takes a Church to Raise a Christian, Tod Bolsinger writes, "The church is not a helpful thing for my individual spiritual journey. The church is the journey."

He calls the church an "ontologically irreducible organism." In other words, the church cannot be broken down into parts. It isn't like a club, where autonomous individuals come together based on a common interest or goal. It's more like an organism, where each "member" has a vital role in the whole but cannot survive outside of it. He gets this from the "body of Christ" langauge in 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 3–4.

What do you think about this? If this is sound, what does that mean for those who "love Jesus but want nothing to do with 'organized' religion'"?

Prayer and the Spiritual Life

Last night my Spiritual Life Class talked about prayer. I opened with a discussion question:

Does prayer change God's mind? If not, why do we pray?

To help with the first question, consider the following passages:

He issued a proclamation and said, "In Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles--Let neither human nor animal, cattle nor sheep, taste anything; let them not eat and let them not drink water. 8 Let every person and animal put on sackcloth and let them cry earnestly to God, and let every one turn (Hebrew shuv) from their evil (Hebrew raah) way of living and from the violence that they do. 9 Who knows? Perhaps God might be willing to change his mind (Hebrew shuv) and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we might not die." 10 When God saw their actions--they turned (Hebrew shuv) from their evil (Hebrew raah) way of living!--God relented concerning the judgment (Hebrew raah) he had threatened them with and he did not destroy them. (Jonah 3:7–10 NET)

God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a human being, that he should repent. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not establish it? (Numbers 23:19 NET)

Notice in the Jonah passage the parallel between the Ninevite's actions of "turning" from their "evil" and God "turning" from the "calamity" that He had promised. See also 2 Chronicles 33:10–13 and Luke 18:1–8.

Regardless of your answer to the first question, what about the second? Why do we pray?

Spiritual Life Question

My Spiritual Life Class met on Tuesday. This week I opened with the question:

Define relationship. What are some characteristics of a relationship?

The class immediately shot off characteristics of relationships. We put together a pretty good list. But, when we moved to a definition of a relationship, the room got quiet. Eventually we hammed out something like "Two or more 'things' mutually interacting, connecting, and sharing with one another in varying degrees of commonality."

Fair enough. It's not poetic, but it articulates the main elements of a relationship.

I then asked:

One of the main metaphors for the Christian experience is "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ." We often say, "Christianity is not a religion; it's a relationship." What do we mean by that?

Can our experience of God be called a relationship according to the definition above? I have a relationship with my wife. I have a different kind of relationship with my boss. I use the same word "relationship" to describe my experience with both people. How are they both relationships? How are they different? Can I say that I have a relationship with God? If so, it certainly looks different than my relationship with my boss, not to mention my relationship with my wife.

Given that the phrase "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" is not in the Bible, should we abandon the metaphor, or is there a way to justify it?

Gordon Fee on the Holy Spirit 2

Having just finished Gordon Fee's, God's Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul, I thought it might be cool to do a series of posts featuring quotes from the book on the Holy Spirit.

In this quote, Fee comments on 1 Corinthians 6:19–20, "Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body." (NET)

The message of this text needs to be resounded repeatedly in the face of every encroachment of Hellenistic dualism that would negate the body in favor of the soul. God made us whole people; and in Christ he has redeemed us wholly. According to the Christian view there is no dichotomy between body and spirit that either indulges the body because it is irrelevant of punishes it so as to purify the spirit. This pagan view of physical existence creeps into Christian theology in any number of subtle ways, including the penchant on the part of
some to 'save souls' while caring little for people's material needs. Not the immortality of the soul, but the resurrection of the body, is the Christian creed, based on the NT revelation. That creed does not lead to crass materialism; rather it affirms a holistic view of redemption, which is predicated in part on the doctrine of creation--both the physical and spiritual orders are good because God created them--and in part on the doctrine of redemption, including the consummation--the whole of the fallen order, including the body, has been redeemed in Christ and awaits its final redemption. (137)

Fee correctly speaks against the dichotomy between "body" and "spirit." Gad has created us body and spirit and He is redeeming us body and spirit. Thus we can't just talk about "saving people's souls" while neglecting their physical needs.

Spiritual Life Question

I asked a question in my Spiritual Life class on Tuesday, and I was surprised by the responses. I started the class by playing a clip from M. Night Shyamalan's Signs in which Mel Gibson's character talks about his disbelief in God. The most chilling line of the movie is when he looks at the camera and says, "There is no one watching over us. We are on our own." It is powerfully delivered.

After playing the clip, I asked the class, "What spiritual experience have you had to justify belief?" In other words, "How do we know that God is looking out for us?"

Spiritual Life Questions

Two questions I asked my Spiritual Life class last night:

"What does it mean to be spiritual?"

In other words, "What is the difference betweeen 'the spiritual life' and 'normal' life?"

Awaiting Redemption Redirected

I was very close to shutting this blog down for good, but I'm not going to do that. The past few months have been good for me--much better than the six months previous. I think that my participation in online communities and discussion groups was distracting me from the things I enjoy most in life. When I cut the internet out of my life for a season, I rediscovered who I am.

The internet can be stimulating. I enjoy lively discussion of ideas. I love the reevaluate what I believe, why I believe it, and what difference it makes to the world. My interests are mostly in theology, ethics, and Christian origins, and most people are bored with the things that excite me. Thus, blogs and discussion boards can be a much-needed outlet for my intellectual and spiritual curiosity.

I started this blog as a way of thinking out loud--of putting my thoughts about life, God, and especially "already/not yet" spirituality, on to paper (or rather server space). The key to a good blog, I heard, is to update it every day. So I tried.

Big mistake.

I wasted so much time in stupid discussions about things like the Emergent church, the New Perspective on Paul, and how we know what we know, that I neglected the things that really matter. I have since made it a priority to take care of myself. I need to get exercise. I need to watch what I eat. I want to spend time with the people who matter most to me. I need to pursue God. I need to figure out once and for all how Christianity "works." I need to be more aware of the needs of the people around me. I need to become the person that I want to become. Or, as Elvis Presley once put it so profoundly, "I need a little less conversation and a little more action."

I am going to keep the blog going. I do find it to be helpful in some ways, and I think I will probably start another blog some time in the future if I put this one to rest. I figure I can just save myself a step by leaving this one active. I am not going to update it every day--only when I have something to say.

Thanks for reading.

Original Sin: A Cultural History by Alan Jacobs

Now that I have finished discussing D.A. Carson’s Christ and Culture Revisited, I am moving on to Alan Jacobs’ Original Sin: A Cultural History. Jacobs is an English professor at Wheaton, and the purpose of his book is not to present an exegetical defense of original sin, but a cultural one. He is going to look at ways original sin has been portrayed by various writers, poets, and playwrights through history to give a “cultural defense” of the doctrine. He agrees with G.K. Chesterton that original sin is the only Christian doctrine that can be empirically validated.

In the introduction to his book, Jacobs clears up a common misunderstanding of original sin. When most people hear the phrase “original sin,” they think of Adam and Eve’s eating of the apple in the Garden of Eden. That, to them, was “the original sin.” While original sin does relate to Adam and Eve, that is not what theologians mean when they refer to original sin.

Original sin is the doctrine that all people are born sinners—that they inherit guilt from the womb before they ever do anything good or evil. We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners. The primary defense of original sin as a doctrine comes from Romans 5:12–21:

So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people because all sinned-- for before the law was given, sin was in the world, but there is no accounting for sin when there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who did not sin in the same way that Adam (who is a type of the coming one) transgressed. But the gracious gift is not like the transgression. For if the many died through the transgression of the one man, how much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ multiply to the many! And the gift is not like the one who sinned. For judgment, resulting from the one transgression, led to condemnation, but the gracious gift from the many failures led to justification. For if, by the transgression of the one man, death reigned through the one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ!

Consequently, just as condemnation for all people came through one transgression, so too through the one righteous act came righteousness leading to life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one man many will be made righteous. Now the law came in so that the transgression may increase, but where sin increased, grace multiplied all the more, so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (NET)

The key verse is verse 12, “So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people because all sinned.” When Adam sinned, death spread to all people because all people sinned (in Adam). Original sin is the sin we are born with that we have inherited from Adam.

Jacobs notes that original sin is a very unpopular idea today. The notion that we are born guilty for something we did not personally do rubs us the wrong way. Through his book, Jacobs hopes to renew appreciation for the doctrine as the best way to explain why people do what they do, and why they feel the way they feel about the things that they do.

Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (Chapter 14)

In the last 2 chapters of Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright is going to "reshape the church for mission," beginning in chapter 14 with the biblical roots of this mission.

Wright argues from the Gospels, Acts, and Paul that the message of the kingdom of God is "Jesus is Lord and Caesar [or, insert world ruler here] is not." Wright writes:

"The resurrection is not an isolated supernatural oddity proving how powerful, if apparently arbitrary, God can be when he wants to. Nor is it at all a way of showing that there is indeed a heaven waiting for us after death. It is the decisive event demonstrating that God's kingdom really has been launched on earth as it is in heaven." (N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church [New York: HarperOne, 2008], 234.)

The obvious objection to this is, "If Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not, why does Caesar seem to have all of the power?" Wright answers:

"The difference between the kingdoms of the world and the kingdom of God lies exactly in this, that the kingdom of God comes through the death and resurrection of his Son, not through naked displays of brute force or wealth." (245)

This leads one naturally to ask the question, what does Jesus's reign look like, if not brute force and wealth? Wright writes:

"The revolutionary new world, which began in the resurrection of Jesus--the world where Jesus reigns as Lord, having won the victory over sin and death--has its frontline outposts in those who in baptism have shared in his death and resurrection. The intermediate stage between the resurrection of Jesus and the renewal of the whole world is the renewal of human beings--you and me!--in our own lives of obedience here and now." (249)

Wright concludes:

"Heaven and earth, I repeat, are made for each other, and at certain points they intersect and interlock. Jesus is the ultimate such point. We as Christians are meant to be such points, derived from him. The Spirit, the sacraments, and the scriptures are given so that the double life of Jesus, both heavenly and earthly, can become ours as well, already in the present." (252)

I think Wright perfectly articulates what is going on in the church. God is renewing the world, and He is doing so by renewing individuals. I think Paul's language of the Holy Spirit being a "downpayment" of the world to come means that the Spirit's work in the community of faith is the world becoming "on earth as it is in heaven."

I started this blog to explore what effect "already/not yet" theology would have on Christian living and the mission of the church, and I think Wright has perfectly articulated a lot of this in Surprised by Hope.

What are some things that the church in America can do to make our communities "on earth as it is in heaven"?

Psalm 6

What a great psalm. It's psalms like this that make me read the Bible.

I love the imagery in this psalm about the emotional consequnces of sin. The psalmist says, "my bones are in agony" and "[I] drench my couch with tears." Wow. The reference to the enemies implies to me that the psalmist saw the physical affliction brought to him by these enemies as God's way of chastening him. He sinned, and the bad guys started hurting him. He prayed for mercy, and he anticipated that the Lord would drive them away.

It's great that we have a God who cares about our groaning. Sometimes it feels like people in church are afraid to hurt. They feel that because they have Jesus, everything should be bright and chipper in their lives. This hasn't been my experience, and I don't think it's normative for Christianity. We are still experiencing the effects of the fall. Death is alive and well. Satan is still the ruler of this age. We are all wasting away. And yet, we are also members of a new age--an age in which death has no power over us. But as we await our redemption, it's okay to mourn the tragedies we see every day. The promise of victory and resurrection should motivate us to cry out to the One who defeated death. He cares about our pain.

"Father, I don't understand why, in Your greatness, you give second thought to people like me. But I'm grateful that you do. Thank you for being compassionate, for being merciful, for being faithful. Father, as I see the pain and suffering around me and around the world, I am reminded that the last enemy has not been subdued yet. I am reminded that I am not home yet. I am reminded that Your kingdom is still in a lot of ways not yet. Father, give me the the faith to persevere. I ask also for the wisdom to recognize the hurting around me and to reach out to them with comfort. I thank you for Your comfort, and for the community of saints who have comforted me. Amen."

Psalm 4

Today I reflected on Psalm 4. From what I gather, Israel was going through some kind of famine or otherwise trying time, and they were starting to doubt the Lord's faithfulness and the psalmist's ability to lead. Verses 4–6 imply that some of them were grumbling against Yahweh/the king and were even turning to other gods for prosperity. On the one hand, the psalmist expresses confidence that the Lord will protect his righteous ones, so that he can sleep more peacefully at night than the others can even when their storehouses overflow with grain and their vats with wine. On the other hand, he acknowledges the hard times and cries out to God to deliver him.

Again, a lot of this language is foreign to me because the "tough times" I have seen are nothing compared to the impact of a famine on an agrarian culture. I can't imagine praying to idols to turn around the American economy. But then again, maybe that American economic machine is the "delusion" and the "false god" of our day. Why do we get so worked up when the value of the dollar decreases, when the stock market starts to slide, or when the housing market slumps? Do we doubt God's ability to take care of us? These things seem kind of trivial when I reflect on the poverty of many people outside of the U.S. Yet, I worry about them all the same.

"Father, I still wrestle with the discomfort of my personal prosperity. I feel uneasy about being a part of an economic system that promotes global inequality. Perhaps that is conviction. Perhaps it is false guilt. I can't help that I was born in America. I can't help that there are certain realities to living in America. Yet, Father, I feel that the American system saps my need for you. The times that You have felt most "close" or "real" have been the times of personal tragedy. Am I robbing my spirit by feeding by bank account and belly?

Lord, I don't know the answer to my uneasiness. I do know that I want to be a part of the solution. I pray that You would continue to work in me. That You would convict me of greed, of selfishness, of pride. I pray that You would make me more conscious of the needs of the people around me and of the people around the world. I pray that You would make our nation a more compassionate one, and that You would start with Your church here. Amen."

Psalm 1

There was a time in my life when I decided that I needed to ground myself in what the Scriptures say about God so that I could better navigate through contemporary literature. So much of what we do and say is based on our own perceptions of what we want God to be like instead of what the Scriptures say God is like. My decision took me to the psalms, and I ploughed through them, one psalm at a time, through the whole book. When I finished the book, I stopped the discipline.

Well, I think I could use that again. I read a lot about theology, Christianity, ministry, etc., but it's not too often that I just reflect on God. Even when I study the New Testament, I tend to emphasize translation, historical background, and theology. Too often these other valuable things crowd out what God has to say to me through His word.

Today I reflected on Psalm 1 for a bit. It's interesting that a decision to reflect on the Scriptures begins with a psalm expounding the importance of reflecting on the Scriptures. The psalm has three stanzas--one about the man who delights in the law, one about the wicked, and one summary statement.

I find myself easily agreeing with the second stanza. It's easy to see the connection between living apart from God and failing miserably in life. The first stanza, however, is a bit tougher for me to believe--I mean really believe. I can acknowledge with my head that studying the Scriptures is a good thing, but would I go so far as to say that "my delight is in the law," or that I "meditate on it day and night" as the NIV renders the verses? Hardly.

Maybe this is a challenge to me to reevaluate the way I "do Christianity." I study the Scriptures because I enjoy it--it's fascinating to me to dig into the cultural milieu of the anciet world to uncover what was going on in the ancient writers' heads as they reflected on God. But do I go one step further, and ask, "How does this promote wise living?" Perhaps I need to do more of that.

"Father, I confess that at times I have been guilty of treating the Scriptures as an historical document and not a living, spiritual force. I confess that when I have made decisions based on what has seemed right to me at the time, that I have gotten into trouble. Father, I believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that I won't be whole until I figure out what that means for me. I pray that you would continue to mold me. I pray that I would be humble in my thoughts and disciplined in my commitments. I pray that I would develop a spiritual wisdom. I thank you for being patient--for picking me up when I have failed miserably. I thank you for your grace. I thank you for the spiritual community of which I am a part. You are good to me. Amen."

Random Musing on Evangelical Culture and the Future

Sometimes I wonder if I am a non-conformist to a fault.

I read a lot of "liberal" stuff, subscribe to a kind of postmodern epistemology/hermeneutic, subscribe to Sojourners, and sympathize with a lot of Roman Catholic and liberal protestant ideas. Sometimes I get the feeling that there are some at my church who wonder if I am a liberal or, worse yet, emergent. At the same time, I went to Cedarvile University and Dallas Seminary, I believe in "inerrancy," and generally take a conservative position on almost every theological issue. Most people on the emerging church blogs would probably call me a fundamentalist.

Can't we all just get along?

I read a lot of the emerging church literature and I agree with most of it, but I still find myself an outsider. I think that the evangelical church in America has some serious problems and is in need of a major overhaul. I am a child of the late seventies/early eighties, raised in public school, and cannot help but think like a postmodernist. It's who I am. (Interestingly enough, I did not approach the postmodernism issue as a modernist evangelical trying to speak the language of the culture, but as a postmodernist realizing that I did not have to conform to the dominant worldview of my evangelical tribe.) However, while postmodernism has led a lot of evangelicals toward the left, it has solidified my position on the right. I no longer feel the need to have to justify my crazy beliefs--they work for me, which is all anyone can say about their beliefs.

I get upset sometimes when I read the emerging blogs because they portray the people who mentored me as ungodly dinosaurs who are only interested in head knowledge to the detriment of following Christ. Nothing could be further from the truth. I know these guys; and I know they love God. At the same time, one of the reasons I did not persue a PhD is because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to get a job at a conservative seminary. I know my eschatological beliefs proclude me from teaching at either school from which I graduated. That hurts, too. It's kind of like there is a line in the sand. You have to be either a left wing fruit nut with no systematic theology and an axe to grind about American consumerism, or a right wing stiff decrying the evils of narrative theology or the New Perspective on Paul. What about the people who believe that there are right and wrong answers, but who are open to the idea that some of their own answers might be the wrong ones, and who, at the same time, want to see us getting out into the world to transform it?

Here is my question. Is there room in the future of evangelicalism for the postmodern fundamentalist? By this, I mean the person who rejects anyone's claim of absolute certainty regarding any metanarrative, and recognizes such assertions as little more than power plays, but whose own views are really conservative. I hope so, because that is what I am starting to feel that I am.

Community and Spiritual Transformation

I am starting an eight-week experiment on spiritual transformation. At the root of my study is the question, "How do people change?" I am in the middle of a sermon series called Roots: Understanding our Spiritual Heritage, in which I am teaching through the Book of Colossians. I have divided the book into four topics that I think form the roots of our faith--Christology, mission, transformation, and community. The last message I did was the second of three weeks of transformation. The final transformation message will happen on December 30.

I have been wrestling with the question of spiritual transformation for some time now. I have talked about how not to be transformed (i.e. legalism) and the theology of transformation (i.e. the already but not yet), but I haven't settled the question of the nuts and bolts of change. When I share this, I don't just want to present a theological expose of how I think people should change based on what I read in the Bible, but I want to share real life wisdom on how people do change based on my spiritual experiences. As always, I am more interested in praxis than I am in theory.

I believe that spiritual transformation is just that--spiritual. I starts with God and happens by grace through faith. Perhaps that is what Paul means in Galatians 3:2–3, "I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?" (NIV) On the other hand, Bonhoeffer has convinced me that "faith" is not equivalent to passive "belief," so some kind of human resonse is necessary for transformation. Belief is certainly involved in faith, but the two are not identical. I love what Bonhoeffer wrote in The Cost of Discpleship, "Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes." I think Paul also recognized a tension between spiritual enablement and human response when he wrote in Philippians 2:12–13, "continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." (NIV)

There is a tension in spiritual transformation between will and grace. My question is, "What is the difference between what Paul wanted the Philippians to do in Phil 2:12–13 and what he criticized the Galatians for doing in Gal 3:2–3?" For this, I think the works on Paul by James Dunn and N.T. Wright are helpful. The "works" that the Galatians relied on were the ethnic identity markers of circumcision and obedience to the Mosaic Law. The "faith" that Paul encouraged was alllegiance to Jesus and the gospel message. The faith/works distinction is not between belief and action, but between allegiance to the ethnic identity markers of the Mosaic law and allegiance to Christ.

So, what is the practical outworking of faith? First, there is a necessity of trusting in God (I think this is what Paul means by justification by faith). Also, I think that it is also important to be immersed in the spiritual community (perhaps this is one aspect of what it means to be "in Christ," i.e. "in" His body, the church).

I have developed a philosophy of what I think it takes to be transformed. On the one hand, I think it takes prayer and meditation on God's word. These two disciplines are indespensible to Christian spirituality. Also, I think it requires involvement in the spiritual community, especially through confession and repentance. I think James was getting at something when he wrote, "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed." (James 5:16 NIV) I have found that the significant spiritual changes that I have made in my life have occurred when: (1) I decided that I truly wanted to change and I resolved to do so, and (2) I found accountability for my resolution. It is interesting that these resemble the spiritual disciplines of repentance (1) and confession (2). Maybe the ancients knew what they were talking about.

I plan to teach on December 30 that repentance and confession are the keys to our part of spiritual change. Before I do that, I am going to find an accountability partner and test the theory on myself over the next 8 weeks. I will post on the blog how everything turns out.