Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Religion

All posts relating to religion, including those on the relationship of religion to other fields, such as science and politics

  • Progressive Orthodoxy

    C. Michael Patton has an interesting post today taken from his introduction to theology students.

    I would particularly like any number of the folks in the various Sunday School classes I teach to absorb some of the material. This is not because I generally agree. I perceive myself to be both to the left and well to the Arminian side of his theology. Yet there are a number of point there that especially many of my Methodist brethren do not understand about either Reformed theology or in general of evangelical theology.

    The first of those items is the definition of sola scriptura. Use that phase in most Methodist churches, in my experience, and people think of a complete rejection of tradition even in terms of the method in which we approach and understand scripture. Thus most of these same Methodists reject sola scriptura.

    Patton describes it thus:

    2. Scriptural Orthodoxy. This is the belief that Scripture alone sets the bounds of orthodoxy without any (or minimal) aid from the historic body of Christ. This should not be mistaken for sola Scriptura—the belief that the Scripture is our final and only infallible authority in matters of faith and practice—but as a radical rejection of any other sources of authority such as the church, tradition, natural revelation, etc. It is often referred to as solo Scriptura or nuda Scriptura. Here, there would not be minimal (if any) authority derived from the body of Christ, historic or contemporary, as an interpretive community that either fallibly or infallibly has the ability to define orthodoxy. Adherents would often be found saying, “No creed but the Bible.”

    The second would be the idea of progressive understanding, or “illumination” as illustrated in the various graphics. He describes that as follows:

    6. Progressive Orthodoxy. This is the belief that the ultimate authority for the Christian faith is found only in the Scriptures (sola Scriptura) and that orthodoxy is a progressive development of the Church’s understanding of the Scriptures. …

    Patton is an advocate of progressive orthodoxy.

    I believe I fall a bit to the left of that position, because I fail to see the clear line between “revelation” and “illumination” that comes at the end of the canon. I accept that we can, and indeed have, developed doctrine past the revelation of the canon, but I don’t see the hard and fast line. In a sense, the “nuda scriptura” folks (to borrow from Patton’s definition) have a point in that if the canon is complete, why would it not define such doctrines as the trinity if, in fact, the trinity is an essential. It’s interesting to me that many who claim the Bible alone in this narrower sense do accept the doctrine of the trinity, even though it seems to me that it requires some Christian tradition to get to what I would call the orthodox doctrine at least.

    I appreciate also the essentials/non-essentials distinction, which many folks have a hard time making. It’s too easy to make the essentials be totally coterminous with their personal belief system. I wrote about this in a post Unity, Diversity, and Confusion, in which I argue that you must have some core of common belief, but you can also have way to much required common belief.

    I continued this theme in several posts, notably Excessively Large Tent = Crash, and Christian Essentials – Incarnation at the Center, in which I discuss where I start in defining essential doctrines. Each of those posts provides links to my own further discussion.

  • The Age of the Earth – Not a Minor Difference

    In the good old days when I used to have a seminar on this topic that I used in churches, I had an overhead transparency that showed the age of the earth (along with some of the various geological time periods). This was represented by a line that went the length of the slide. Beside it was the young age, represented by a dot.

    The BioLogos Foundation Science and the Sacred blog has something about this today. It’s not a minor difference, explainable by slightly different interpretations. It’s a massive. fundamental difference.

  • The Real War on Christmas

    I received an e-mail from the AFA giving me the wonderful news that the governor of Kentucky has backed down on calling the Christmas tree in the state capitol a “holiday tree” and will call it a Christmas tree. In order to help this happen elsewhere, I’m told to buy packets of buttons, wear them, and get all my friends to wear them. There are even church packs and a display pack of 250 buttons.

    At the same time I am already seeing Christmas advertising on TV and hearing it on the radio. I understand the reasoning behind it. After all, I’m a businessman too, and there will be lots of Christmas buying. I can’t help but hope that some people will choose various books offered by my company as Christmas presents. But that is a commercial desire related to a commercial holiday.

    Some Christians feel that there is a war on Christmas, and that this war involves rules requiring store clerks or government officials to wish people happy holidays rather than merry Christmas or the removal of creche displays from public parks. If I could steal an idea from C. S. Lews (Screwtape Letters) and think like a demon for a moment, I would regard this as an excellent diversionary attack.

    Before D-Day in World War II the Germans were convinced that the allied landings would come somewhere around the Pas de Calais. The distance was shorter, the logistics would be easier, and it made a great deal of strategic sense. The allies went to some trouble to foster this impression, even creating a fake army that consisted merely of tents and communications gear that simulated an invasion in preparation. Because the Germans were convinced that the real attack would come somewhat to the north of where it did, they delayed in committing their mobile reserve (panzers), much to the benefit of the allied forces.

    While we’re worried about losing the external trappings of Christmas, such as public trees and manger displays, the real war on Christmas is practically won already. Christmas has almost nothing at all to do with Jesus. This has been my opinion for many years. Christmas as celebrated in America, even in most of our churches, is about us and our economic prosperity, not about Jesus and his good news.

    Studying the liturgical year has just emphasized this to me more, and now that I’m teaching a series on the gospel of Luke for a Sunday School class, I find it rubbed in my face. The advent comes at a time of great trouble and need. There is long expectation, hope kept alive through times of hardship, and recognition of need. When God’s gift comes it does not look like what the world sees as success or greatness. The birth of Jesus is not a commercial success. God gives himself to us at the time of our greatest need. Receiving the gospel message is like a reenactment of this in miniature. The wise men come and give gifts to the king in the manger, though he hasn’t asked. Shepherds worship him. The babe in the manger is the center of God’s activity, even though the world around hardly notices.

    This is almost totally unlike our Christmas celebrations in the church or in our homes. Oh, we certainly do give something to others. There will be gifts sent to children who will not otherwise have a Christmas and food packages passed to people in need. But let’s face it. Most of our money will be spent on us. Christmas will not look largely like a spiritual experience. We’ll start celebrating it weeks early even in church. We’ll skip over the advent expectation and go straight to the Christmas celebration.

    And that celebration will mostly be about us. It will largely be a commercial holiday for us. The emphasis on Christmas, such as it is, will not be a witness to Jesus, but rather to “Christianity – the Brand.”

    The war on Christmas is going rather badly for us. Perhaps we should quit bothering about the wrong war, and save whatever money we were going to spend on “Merry Christmas” buttons to use to help others. If you don’t have any idea where to give it, I’d be happy to make some suggestions.

  • Idolatry of Apologetics

    Todd C. Wood, a baraminologist (he studies “kinds” as in Genesis 1), has written an excellent post about how we Christians often make idols of our particular arguments (HT: The Austringer).

    Now as far as I can see, Dr. Wood and I would find ourselves on the opposite side of most debates about origins, but we can make, and believe, our arguments without also making them idols.

    If I might summarize my own view on it, it’s a matter of priorities. Often we make so many issues critical that we have no time to focus on the essentials. One lesson of military strategy is that often when you try to guard everything you end up protecting nothing.

    When Dr. Todd says:

    I greatly fear that our faith in Christ has been replaced with an idolatry of apologetics. I fear we’ve stopped believing in Christ and started believing in arguments about Christ (or the Bible or creation or what have you). I fear we’ve bowed to the world’s demand that we believe only that which is rational. We’re certainly no longer content with merely saying “I don’t know.” We have to have answers, and endless (and often pointless) argument has become our substitute for simply telling unbelievers what Christ has done for us.

    Now I’m not saying that logical arguments are not important, nor am I saying that apologetics is not a valuable Christian activity. It is not that evidence and arguments are unimportant. In my own view the problem is that we make many things essential that are not actually essential parts of the gospel. We make the way we see things the norm, and expect others to see them the same way. In this way we make things ultimate that are not, in fact, ultimate.

    There is a time to debate, but there is also a time to “know nothing but Jesus, and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).

  • On Receiving Copies of Megabelt

    Megabelt - a story about growing up in the Bible Belt

    It’s always great to receive cases of new books, and yesterday was no exception as our first copies of Megabelt arrived.

    I wrote earlier (Beware Friends Bearing Manuscripts) about receiving the manuscript for this little book. Since then we have done considerable work with it, produced what I think is a truly unique and creative cover (by Robert J. Hill of InnerLight Productions), and added illustrations.

    In this case it was especially enjoyable to receive the books, because within an hour of their arrival, I had author Nick May visiting to get his hands on copies, even if it required special mental powers to do so. He has done an extraordinary job of publicizing his own material. (Note to aspiring authors: You are your own best salesperson!) I really enjoy having authors come to me and say, “I think we need to do such and such, will you pay for it?” rather than waiting for me to come up with the ideas.

    Of course for a first time author, such as Nick, getting your hands on that first copy of your book is a special occasion. So we got to talking about reactions to the book.

    I summarized my reaction thus: There are many things in Megabelt that I have done myself. Many of them, I’m not going to do again. A few of them, I’m going to do anyhow, but I’m going to laugh while I do them. I got a chance to laugh a bit while pulling out my church bulletin and claiming the 10% discount at a restaurant, even though I fully empathize with the fun that Megabelt has with this and some other practices that happen in the Bible belt.

    Nick’s response was simply that this was precisely what he hoped. He wanted to hold up a mirror and get people to think about church culture. I like that idea.

    I sometimes sound like a broken record when I talk about books offending people. But I have to remember the time when a young man spent half an hour berating me at a show because my book What’s in a Version? doesn’t tell people that the KJV is the one and only true Bible. I had another person inform me that he had discarded one of the books I publish because he wouldn’t have it contaminating his book shelf. I have been criticized because I would not declare that I would publish only books that contained only the truth. The problem there, amongst other things, would be the notion of setting myself up as the final arbiter of truth. I could publish only books that I believe to be the truth, but that might result in a narrow list.

    What I hope I’m doing is publishing books that will send readers forward on the search for truth. I can say it about Megabelt, because it was intentionally written as a sort of mirror. But I hope the same thing happens elsewhere. Let the things I publish drive you to the source. A Bible study guide should just be a way station on the way to studying the Bible for yourself. One on prayer of the gifts of the Spirit should be a way station on the way to your own process of listening to God and being led by the Holy Spirit.

    But I digress into excessively serious reflection. Megabelt is fun. Have fun, but don’t be surprised if you feel impelled to change some of your churchy behavior after you read.

  • Facing Detours

    Having made plenty of detours in both my physical and spiritual life, I really appreciated this post from Pen of the Wayfarer.

  • Doing Something

    Talk is cheap, and I’m a good talker. This past Sunday I visited a new Sunday School class and met a young man who told me that he was opposed to abortion. He went on to say that he believed that if you talked about something you should be willing to act, and in his case, that meant going out and getting the home study done and being willing to adopt. He and his wife had done precisely that and had adopted an older child.

    I deeply respect someone who takes that sort of action. There are many ways in which one can act. Some of us are called upon to proclaim, but even then I think the proclamation gets weak if one isn’t personally involved in taking action in some way.

    Today Allan Bevere has a great post on the health care debate and how the church should be engaged. What can we do? Do we really believe the gospel has power? Consider this near Allan’s conclusion:

    … But in the midst of the debate over how the Principality and Power called the United States can initiate health care reform, I believe that the church should be ahead of the game and work to cover as many people as it possibly can, and thereby demonstrate a powerful witness to others concerning what is possible. The church is a sleeping giant with resources available to it, both spiritual and physical, that can shake the very foundations of every civilization, but they are under-utilized because we continue to think the nation-state is where the real action is. We continue to believe that Caesar is more effective in accomplishing tasks than the people of God brought into existence by nothing less than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. [emphasis mine]

    I think our greatest difficulty with sharing or proclaiming the gospel in this country is that we do not show the power of the gospel in the way we live as a church. If the gospel has power–resurrection power–then we should be able to point to something to show for it, as the early disciples pointed to an empty tomb.

  • How to talk to ANYONE on a Journey

    The Internet Monk has become must read amongst the many blogs I scan. Today, his post How to Talk to an Evangelical on a Journey is exceptionally good reading.

    As you can guess from my title, I do have one note, and if you know me, you may be aware that I can’t help introducing this note with a story.

    I was leading a study group some years back in a church that was divided over issues of worship styles and spiritual gifts, which could be called disputes over just how the Holy Spirit would work in a church. Members of this group had been the targets of attempts to “evangelize” or more accurately to move them from one group to the other. Some of those attempts had involved belittling their faith or commitment to Christ.

    I asked the various members to tell me what approaches had seemed most hurtful and least constructive to them. They batted around a number of examples. Then I said, “I wonder if any of us have used these approaches on non-Christians?” (That “us” was definitely inclusive, by the way.) We all admitted that we had and then continued with a vigorous and helpful discussion of how one can share without talking down.

    That’s why I used “ANYONE” in my title. While there are some elements that are specific to current evangelical journeys, I think all of the points can be adapted to nearly any situation. We would all do well to read them carefully and apply them wisely.

  • Which Way do you Listen?

    Recently Dave Black made a comment regarding the way in which we hold certain correct doctrines (HT: Dave Black Online. I’m just going to quote one sentence here, which was as much as I could quote in a tweet:

    … sometimes even biblically correct positions can be reduced to a dogmatic narrowness, formalism, and fundamentalism.

    Before you read on, go ahead and read the entire quote.

    Did you read it? Now ask yourself this: Just how did I hear that?

    The reason I ask that question is that the topic in the full quotation is patriarchy, something to which I am not particularly attracted. It is very easy for me to read the one sentence, which I believe tells us something very important about the way in which we hold our viewpoints even, and perhaps especially, our correct ones, as a particular attack on patriarchy or some other conservative position.

    Perhaps you think something like: “I sure hope those folks who advocate patriarchy are listening! They think they’re right and all the rest of us are lost!”

    If you like patriarchy, you might feel that Dave Black is coming after you, and thus reject the statement because you believe it’s directed against a viewpoint you favor. (For what it’s worth, I think patriarchy is actually incidental to the statement. You could substitute many terms for it in that paragraph and get the same result–but offend different people with it!)

    But neither of those reactions is all that helpful in my view. The reason I chose to tweet the particular selection that I did is that it addresses something to which we are all tempted–making our pet projects or ideas the center. Paul Tillich defined idolatry as treating something as ultimate that is not actually ultimate (I paraphrase).

    As Christians, the gospel should be ultimate, which in turns means that Jesus should be ultimate, because that is what the gospel says. But quite frequently we make our particular take on the details our ultimate. We turn to worshiping not God, but a mental idol that we have put in God’s place.

    What’s even more dangerous is that once we have made that “concept idol” we become less and less capable of hearing the very proper challenges to our idol and the pedestal on which we have placed it. We hear the challenges to the idols of others. Egalitarians, such as myself, can quite clearly see the dangers of patriarchy and hear clearly when its place on the pedestal is challenged. “Tear down that idol!” we shout!

    But have we made our own idols? Too often we have.

    I believe that we Christians trust the Holy Spirit very little. If we truly believed that the Holy Spirit would teach and empower people, I think we would be less concerned to force them into our mold and more concerned to encourage and enable them to study, meditate, pray, and hear from the Holy Spirit themselves.

    I could be wrong about just about everything. I very often have been, and assume I still am! God can teach me through my stupidity, my carelessness, or my stubbornness. But if I become convinced that I have nothing to learn, that I have nailed down all the details, learning will stop. What would then be an even greater tragedy would be if I tried to impose those final, absolute answers on others.

  • Scot McKnight: Is Low Church Evangelicalism Protestant?

    I find this an interesting question. But before I comment, let me summarize and quote Scot McKnight’s article.

    He first notes that from the early liturgies to the Westminster Confession there is a certain common pattern in worship, one which is dropped by what he calls “low church evangelicalism.” Amongst the elements he includes the multiple scripture readings (Psalm, OT, Epistle, Gospel) that would be familiar to those who follow the lectionary, sharing of the word, and some sort of conclusion, such as the creed.

    He concludes:

    … Low church evangelicalism is too often theologically shallow, frequently chaotic in its order of worship, nearly always lopsided in which parts of the Bible it preaches and teaches and knows, and inexcusably ignorant when it comes to the history of God’s people called the Church. These are marks that it has wandered from the gift of the Reformation. These are marks of groups that are not Protestant.

    Having come from a rather low church background, and then having experience even lower liturgy in charismatic circles, I come at this from the opposite end. My wife was raised Catholic, and I as a Seventh-day Adventist. We came together in a United Methodist congregation with a distinctly charismatic tilt. I tend to find much more value in the form of the liturgy, and particularly in the scripture readings. I’m disappointed that we do not read four full scriptures.

    The general complaint I hear in charismatic and other low church circles is that high church worship is just dead ritual. From my high church friends I hear that low church worship is shallow, and so are very many of the worshipers.

    There is some truth in both accusations. In many cases I have found that charismatic believers will not meet without the expectation of some manifestation of the presence of the Spirit, i.e. without an emotion-engaging spiritual experience. They will forgo any other element of worship in order to get there. So often a worship service can consist entirely of singing, with the expectation that there will be people around the altar or whatever one calls the area at the front of the church weeping, on the floor, or in some other way making it known that the Spirit is there.

    High church folks quite often don’t want to be interrupted in their liturgy by anything, and often I think this includes being interrupted by the Spirit. While they are likely to refer to the emotional manifestations as the kind of thing they wish to avoid, they may also wish to avoid discussion or testimony, or just about anything that makes the message current.

    Now both of my last two paragraphs paint an extreme, and I can point to any number of exceptions. For example, the ICON worship service at First United Methodist Church which I attend has the historical order of worship, but is quite lively. I feel the presence of God there each and every week. I would be delighted to hear more scripture read, but we do get three of the four scriptures worked into the service. I also know any number of free-wheeling charismatics who are quite serious about studying their Bibles.

    My hope would be to find a balance that connects us to history, roots us in scripture, and challenges us to Christian living all in one.

    Having said all of that, I really don’t know the answer to Dr. McKnight’s question. First, I have always used the term “protestant” for any movement that grew out of the protestant reformation, even though I’m aware that some groups and streams are very different. Second, I’m not sure what specifically the title “protestant” should prove. I have avoided calling myself “evangelical” because I’m not all that sure what it means and how precisely it differs from simply being “Christian.”

    One note I would add is this: Was liturgy a defining element of the protestant reformation? Is it not possible that the reformers stuck with the basic liturgy not because it was defining, but because it was not–it was simply an element of their tradition that they didn’t see any immediate need to reform. If that is the case, I would have a hard time seeing how the word “protestant” should be defined in part by liturgy.