Synchronicity

All day Wednesday I struggled at work with boredom. It's not that I didn't have anything to do, it was that I didn't feel like doing anything. I was working from home, which is sometimes counterproductive. The house is too quiet and the climate control too comfortable for serious work. So my mind wandered and my body relaxed the more I slumped in my chair and stretched out my legs.

As soon as I went into work the next day I received an email titled: "Boredom at Work is Self Inflicted". It was from a daily devotional of a ministry called Work Life: http://www.worklife.org/

I felt like a complainer...and I was. It's absurd when you think about all the blessings and gifts and resources I've been given to provide for my family and live a comfortable life (comfortable in light of the world population, not necessarily middle or under middle class Americans). My current vocation does not line up with what I perceive to be my long-term vocational calling...so I often enjoy whining about it, which leads to boredom, self-loathing and apathy, instead of being thankful, which leads to praise, contentment and a gracious spirit.

What I was especially reminded of in all this was the power of the gospel, to redeem, transcend and inspire any given situation. Isn't that what makes the power of the gospel so great? The gospel is not controlled or produced by its context, but changes the lives of people within a given context in order for God's work to be made manifest in the world. It's a quiet power that moves in the hearts of men with indelible grace and strength.

Opening that email the other day was also a reminder of God's sense of humor in synchronicity, or 'an apparently meaningful coincidence.' I can't remember if I laughed or cussed, but the irony was wonderful. To receive that email, blasted out to thousands, the day after I struggled mightily with boredom, was, what I interpret as, God's providence. I don't look for 'synchronic signs' under every rock...but I know them when I see them.

May we all 'work as though working unto the Lord' (Col 3.22-24) and allow the peace of Christ to do the rest (Phil 4.4-7).

Revelation, not Explanation

My pastor, Keith Ferguson, is taking a break from his current Galatians series to preach on tragedy (Tragedy and Trinity is the sermon title), due to all the questions he's been getting about the relationship between God's goodness and omnipotence (Keith's blog: http://www.gospelrenewal.com/blog/). If God is in fact good, as well as sovereign and all-powerful, then why does he allow (or worse yet be the first cause of) tragedy in our world? This is often referred to as the theodicy, or the problem with evil. It's a legitimate problem, and one that all religions who believe in a personal God are forced to face.

One of the quotes Keith is using, which I think is great, is from a David Platt sermon:  

The greatest need that God says we have in the book of Job in the face of personal tragedy and immense suffering is not explanation, but revelation. David Platt, The Church At Brook Hills

In the face of tragedy trite explanations and tired cliches don't cut it. Unfortunately even Scripture sometimes doesn't cut it (yeah, I said it). If one of my children died in a car crash and someone said, "Well you know God works for the good of those..." I know that's true, but sadly that reminder probably wouldn't help. Instead I need a person to just be there, not an explanation for why something happened.

In the face of tragedy there's a balance that needs to be struck. On the one hand there is hope, a hope that we must cling to and remind ourselves of all the time. On the other hand there is an acceptance of the reality of the tragedy in which we find ourselves. A good friend from seminary was flying home a few years back for his father's funeral. His father died of a heart attack in his 50's. My friend, while at the airport, happened to run into one of the seminary's teaching assistants, who gave his condolences. My friend responded, "Well yeah, but he's in a better place." The teaching assistant paused for a moment and said, "Well yeah, but it still sucks." That was a powerful reminder that we shouldn't sugar coat tragedy. We don't sweep it under the rug so that we can feel better about it. It is what it is. Death is horrible - always. Even when a person is relieved of their current sufferings in this life. Death is an abomination. Suffering and sin and sadness are things that are not right with the world - and were not part of God's original intention for human beings. But the great hope we have is that all those things will pass away, when Christ returns in glory.

It's interesting in Job that the vast majority of the book is made up of attempts at explanation in the face of tremendous suffering. And then the voice of God drives home the fact that what Job needed was a Person, not an commentary. He needed a revelation, not an explanation. Our world needs Jesus, to come face to face with the Person, who is the only one who can deliver on hopeful promises.

Closed Handed / Open Handed

One of the greatest challenges in theology and ministry is differentiating between closed-handed and open-handed beliefs.

Closed-handed beliefs are those beliefs that we must hold to with relentless conviction. To not do so would be to compromise the core of Christian faith. These essential beliefs make Christianity what it is, giving it consistency and coherency. These basic beliefs are generally agreed upon among Christian denominations, although there are, of course, exceptions. Basic beliefs about the Trinity, the Fallenness of Humankind, the Hypo Static Union, the Incarnation, Salvation through Christ Alone by Grace, The Death, Resurrection, Ascension and Future Return of Christ, are all examples of those core Christian beliefs. To take any of these away would be to alter historical Christianity to the point of making it deficient, if not unrecognizable. These are closed-handed issues, because they are basically not up for debate.

Open handed beliefs on the other hand are those beliefs which may be important, but about which Christians of various traditions and backgrounds can comfortably embrace disagreement. These beliefs can be debated without threatening the cogency and coherency of Christianity. Differing views on Baptism and the Eucharist for instance are examples of these (although Baptism and the Eucharist cannot be abandoned altogether to maintain orthodoxy). And even beyond these examples there are issues even more open-handed, such as style of worship music and forms of discipleship and local church programming. These are sometimes referred to by the Greek word adiaphora, or 'non-essentials'.

But unfortunately life is not as clean cut as simply drawing a line between what's most important and what's less important. For instance, how do we even decide what is closed-handed and open-handed? Even if Christendom on the whole agrees on the six or seven closed-handed issues listed above, aren't there a myriad of other issues that various traditions can find reason to argue over? Quite frankly, there are.

I've encountered an example of this struggle with differentiating closed-handed and open-handed issues just this week. I had a good friend who applied for a pastor position at a church in Austin. Right before the final handshake and acceptance of the formal offer, the hiring pastor decided to ask my friend what he 'thought about drinking' (alcohol that is). My friend gave a balanced, and biblical view of drinking: Alcohol is not innately evil, and Jesus drank wine. There is no Scriptural prohibition of alcohol except for the command to not get drunk on wine. Therefore there is liberty in this area. Of course, the pastor would not have asked this unless he had a bone to pick. As soon as my friend answered the question it was if a bomb had gone off in the pastor's office. The pastor began to present his own legalistic and tradition-driven view of alcohol. My friend obviously dodged a bullet with this one. 

So what gives us an anchor for establishing and maintaining consistency in differentiating closed-handed and open-handed issues? It's one thing to debate issues which are adiaphora, but it's another to debate on more central topics such as Who is God? I would suggest that the ancient Christian creeds offer the anchor we need, and the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed in particular (381). This creed forms the basis for articulating historic Christian faith. The great church historian and theologian J.N.D. Kelly has an wonderful quote on the way in which this creed creates unity in the universal and global Body of Christ:

Of all existing creed it is the only one of which ecumenicity, or universal acceptance, can be plausibly claimed. Unlike the purely Western Apostles' Creed, it was admitted as authoritative in East and West alike from 451 onwards, and it has retained that position, with one significant variation in its text, right down to the present day. So far from displacing it, the Reformation reaffirmed its binding character and gave it a new lease of life and an extended currency by translating it into the vernacular tongues. It is thus one of the few threads by which the tattered fragments of the divided robe of Christendom are held together. (Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 296, Italics mine)

This quote obviously speaks to the known disunity in Christianity, but also to its unity, specifically in the creed of 381. The creeds offer a glimmer of hope for the 'divided robe of Christendom'.

In reflecting upon closed and open handed issue, St Augustine's famous quote is always applicable: "In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things, charity."

John Owen Pt. 1: Oblation and Intercession

I'm in a theology group/book club that reads and discusses one book a quarter. It's pretty unofficial and casual. We meet at Austin's classic restaurant Kerbey Ln and discuss what we've read until we stop making sense. We may drink a beer or take down some caffeine, but my personal goal is to eat at least a thousand chips with salsa. I love Kerbey's chips and salsa.

So the book we're reading currently is the most difficult thus far: The great Puritan theologian, John Owen's The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. It is the pinnacle work against the theology of universal redemption, or hypothetical universal redemption (i.e. all are saved, and/or Christ died for all, respectively). They say ('they' being random people I've talked to plus J.I. Packer in the book's introduction) that no one has adequately responded to Owen's argument since it was published in 1684. That's pretty impressive, because that was published 327 years ago.

I have to admit that it's taken awhile to get used to Owen's writing. It's bizarrely awkward. You would think that one could chalk it up to the time period in which is was written, however, even Packer admits that Owen is not a typical writer, even for his time. He seems to write in long-winded streams of consciousness that are hard to follow.

But despite the difficulty, it's obvious that Owen has something to say, and that there is a tenacious logic driving his argument. In the section I'm reading currently he is dealing with the concepts of oblation and intercession. Oblation meaning the suffering of Christ on our behalf. Intercession being the substitutionary atonement for our sins. Owen's arugment is that these two distinct facets of the cross are necessarily and inextricably bound to one another, so that they cannot be fully understood and appreciated apart from one another within the framework of salvation theology. This is because God purposed in Christ to save those for whom he died. For Owen, Christ died for the elect and his paying for their sins was an efficacious work which would be fulfilled unconditionally. In other words, Why would Christ pay for the sins of someone who would then be damned to hell in order to pay for the sins already paid for by Christ? Owen would say that that hypothetical situation would make the cross worthless. Strong words. But also a strong argument.

There is much more to this concept, and much more to come in the book (I'm only 70 pages in), but I have to admit that one thing I am wondering about is whether or not it will be difficult to determine when Owen is simply being logical and when he is being biblical. By no means are those things mutually exclusive, however, because something is logical doesn't require it to be biblical, and vice versa. Interestingly, Calvinists tend to be relentlessly logical, and Owen is no exception. In fact Cavlinist arguments are normally sophisticated, intricate, and logically consistent. Moreover, the traditions stemming from Calvinism no doubt deminstrate a cerebral bent. This makes reading Owen's work critically, intimidating. We'll have to see how the book continues, and if there is anyone out there to respond to Owen's argument. 

The Terrible Inefficiency of a Devotional Life

Recently I sat down in front of my computer to 'revamp' my personal work and life schedule. My work-life balance was horribly off - I was working from home every night, skipping lunch and it seemed that there was a ministry event at church every other night. I was remembering Gordon MacDonald's nervous breakdown in the face of a hectic work schedule (Ordering Your Private World, MacDonald). So with my Excel spreadsheet glowing on my computer screen I filled in the little boxes that represented the various elements of my life.

Two weeks into my plan things seemed to be working well. I was going into work earlier, not bringing work home, and prioritizing my days. All was well, or so it seemed.

All was well until I realized that my devotional life was suffering. I still had a tiny box on the bottom of my Excel sheet, for 6:30am, relegated to 'Quiet Time'. But that 'slot' in my schedule was suffering.

I mentioned this to my good friend Jon and his remark was interesting. He pointed out that devotional time was one of the most inefficient things a person can do. In an effort to improve efficiency I pushed out, unknowingly, one of the most inefficient things I did - morning reading of Scripture and prayer.

Devotional time doesn't make me any more money. It doesn't make my boss happy, it doesn't help me leave work right at 5pm. It doesn't help my morning routine to prepare for work, or my evening routine with the family. It's simply me being still and listening...and reading and praying. And sometimes writing. It doesn't advance my agenda.

At the same time, paradoxically, it's extremely critical to everything I do - as it relates family, work, ministry and every other aspect of life. It influences all of life because it re-orients my heart and mind to God's priorities, whether those things are efficient or not. (Not to say that all of life shouldn't be 'devoted' to God and that continuous prayer shouldn't be indicative of our lives. However, I believe setting aside specific time is critical).

And when you think about, just about all of ministry is that way. It's not only inefficient but also a hassle. It's a hassle sometimes to initiate with my neighbors, take a co-worker out to lunch that needs to hear the gospel, spend extra time praying with my children, or serve weekly in the local church. But what in the world would I be doing if I wasn't doing those things?

Martin Luther said it best when asked how he could fulfill all his personal ministerial responsibilities and still have time to spend several hours a day in prayer and devotional time. He said, (paraphrase) "I'm too busy not to spend that time in prayer before the Lord." The pressure of a busy schedule should drive us to prayer and study and its inefficiencies will ultimately bear fruit that far surpasses the fruit of an 'efficient' life.

Justification

I've been mulling over the subject of Justification since I read NT Wright's book which bears the doctrine's name. Controversial as the book has been, I have found the debate/conversation between he and John Piper (and many others) to be somewhat blase. Although there are distinct differences in their perspectives on Justification (i.e. justification equated to 'covenant faithfulness' and Wright's view on 2Cor 5.21, among others), it seems unreasonable (dare I say melodramatic) to say that the doctrine of Justification itself is at stake in this debate. Be that as it may, the debate has me thinking about the subject.

Just this week the subject of Justification came up again while I was reading through Jaroslav Pelikan's third volume of his magnum opus, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol 3: The Growth of Medieval Theology. One wouldn't expect to hear the word justification (at least I wouldn't) while reading about 7th century theology. However, Pelikan introduces the reader to a theologian of that time period, Julian of Toledo and his predecessor, Ildefonsus . Pelikan describes Julian's view of 'faith alone':

Occasionally this idea of 'grace alone' could even lead to the corollary of 'faith alone', as when Julian of Toledo declared that 'all effort of human argument must be postponed where faith alone is sufficient.' 'The righteousness of faith, by which we are justified' consisted in this, 'that we believe in him whom we do not see, and that, being cleansed by faith, we shall eventually see him in whom we now believe.' His predecessor on the episcopal throne of Toledo, Ildefonsus, spoke even more strongly when he prayed: 'God, who dost make the unclean clean and who by taking away sins dost justify the sinner without work.' Because this passage sounded so much like the teachings of the Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century, it was expunged from some manuscripts of Ildefonsus' On the Virginity of Mary by 'readers who 'were more pious and learned'....who feared that by the misinterpretation of these words Ildefonsus could be accused of the heretical teaching that men could be saved by faith alone.' (p. 27, Pelikan) (all emphasis mine)

Julian and Ildefonsus sound a bit like Protestant Reformers...800 or so years before the Reformation. Protestant Reformers such as Calvin and Luther always stressed that they did not attempt to invent new ideas, but went back to ancient sources, Augustine in particular, to uncover the heart of Christian faith and to revitalize that which (they believe) had been lost in the church's corruption. It seems that they may have had more supporters than one might normally assume.

But Julian's work is not a surprise to many, who believe that Justification as a doctrine can be traced in church history pre-Reformation (see DH Williams, Evangelicals and Tradition, p.129). Evangelical scholars such as Timothy George and Thomas Oden are among those who concur.

However, despite such a strand (and there are other examples) it seems there will always, at least at this rate, be a difference between Protestant and Catholic. Traditionally Catholic (Roman Catholic) theology carries some of the same language of Protestantism, but never fails to emphasize the roles of human and divine cooperation:

1992 Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men. Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy. Its purpose is the glory of God and of Christ, and the gift of eternal life (Cathechism)

There's a lot packed in that statement which someone more qualified could exegete, but the key words and phrases are 'merited for us', 'faith' and 'sacrament'. But a few lines down the word 'cooperation' is introduced:

1993 Justification establishes cooperation between God's grace and man's freedom. On man's part it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent...

The concept of cooperation is what, I think, begins to drive apart Protestant and Catholic. In Roman Catholicism, the role of the Christian is to add to his or her salvation, through the sacraments and by God's grace, thus making justification an on-going reality, not a momentary, forensic declaration of innocence, imputing the righteousness of Christ to the individual. So despite the common strand of justification, found even in the middle ages, it seems there will always be a difference between Protestant and Catholic doctrine in this regard. The debate continues as to how critical these differences are.

So with this on my mind, I listened to several lectures by NT Wright that he gave at Wheaton College about a year ago. He was asked point blank: "How is a person saved?" I was looking forward to the answer, as his previous answers were long, detailed, sophisticated and articulate. But this answer was short: "Grace."

Well, I guess we can all agree on that.

Find Wright's lectures here: http://www.wheaton.edu/wetn/lectures-theology10.htm