Chips, Salsa, Beer, and Theology

For the past 18 months or so, I, along with a handful of other friends, have been meeting on a quarterly basis to talk about theology. We meet at Kerbey Ln (a 24 hr Austin restaurant) where we eat, drink, and discuss a book we've read over the 3-4 preceding months. These meetings have been refreshing and encouraging. The busy-ness of life fades into the background when we commit an evening to our thoughts about God, sharing a meal, and friendship. It's usually about 3 hours after we start, around 11:30 or midnight, that we reluctantly leave our booth, which the waiter has long since stopped checking on for refills, and tiredly return to life's duties.

Although I don't want to over-spiritualize our little theological book club, I also don't want to underestimate its powerfully sacred nature. What we do every few months is create a space for dialogue to flourish. This dialogue is not the empty words of 'how are you doing?' 'Fine, how are you?' 'Good!' 'Yes, good!'. Instead, it's the dialogue of faith - believers reading together, asking tough questions, and doing so apart from denominational/organizational restraints (within reason - we all bring our baggage). Pretense (well, mostly) is gone. So this is a sacred space, where the deeper truths of God intersect with the simplicity of life. 

It's this intersection of the sacred and profane, spiritual and secular, earthly and heavenly, that I find fascinating. I find it fascinating first of all because 15 years ago I would have considered those things to have been mutually exclusive. However, now I find them so intertwined that it actually takes conscious effort to separate them, if even separating them is necessary. Now I see all of truth as God's truth, and all of life as God's gift. For example, one of our group members talked about how he worships God while listening to Radiohead. Although that sounds bizarre, I know what he means. I think anyone who loves music knows what he means. If you are a jazz musician and you had the opportunity to visit the smokey jazz club, The Five Spot, in New York in 1957, to hear John Coltrane play, you would be in heaven. Or if you are a fan of the British Invasion and stepped into the crowd at Shea Stadium in 1965 to hear the Beatles give one of their most famous concerts, you would be in heaven. Neither Radiohead, Coltrane, nor the Beatles had (or have) intentions of leading anyone to Christ. However, the appreciation of great music, just like the appreciate of anything great in this world, always returns to the Father, Son and Spirit. Music only exists because God has created people who make it. It may be 'secular' in its message and in aspects of its form, but it's the creation of the created - and it's beautiful. It has aesthetic value completely apart from whatever message the song writers might be trying to send to his (or their) listeners.

But, back to the sacred space. Despite the intersection of the sacred and profane, sacred space is critical to Christian living. And it's not just a nerdy theology group that creates sacred space. Ultimately, it's the job of the church (not the organization per se, but the people, who are the church). At our small group on Wednesday nights we have about 18 people who are all parents of young kids (except one couple - but at our church, it's only a matter of time). We drop our kids off with baby sitters after a long day, and all us adults converge on one house with food in hand, prepared for 2 hours of sacred space. We do mundane things - we eat, we talk about kids, the weather, football, vacations, work - or whatever. And then we huddle around and pray for one another. And we open Scripture and talk about last Sunday's sermon. In so doing, we step out of the normal rhythms of life and create a period of time (albeit short) in which we create sacred space. Note: We don't do so at the expense of the mundane or earthly. Instead, we join the two. We eat, we pray, we talk, we read the Bible. But it's in the sacred space that we slow down the grind of regular life and invite the Holy Spirit to do his work.

Those are just two example of sacred space. There are many more. We had one last night with our family as we talked to our children about Advent and read from Isaiah 9 and Luke 1. And I'll have to say, that kind of sacred space takes a lot of work. It's not always easy getting four kids to listen to Bible reading at 7:30 in the evening. But it's worth it.

Our theology group meets this coming Thursday to step into that sacred space together, with beers in hand, and chips and salsa ready for devouring. We may even say something helpful to one another in the span of three hours, Lord willing. Or, we may even have a conversation with the wait staff that will spark something of the spiritual in his or her mind that was previously not there, or that lay dormant too long. That's when the sacred and profane, spiritual and secular, meet.

(Anyone reading this is invited to come! Thursday at 8:30 at Kerbey Ln. We're talking about Rob Bell's book Love Wins, which if you have a copy you could probably read it in a few days.)

Hope

A thirteen-year-old boy whose family is part of our local church congregation died this morning at 11:30am. I didn't know him well, but I did observe that we was a sweet and compassionate kid. When my oldest son, who's 7 now, went to Rock the Rock (our version of vacation bible school), this young man reached out to and ministered to him. I am praying for and grieving with this family.

This is the second tragic death that I've been associated with in the last 7 days. One of my best friends' sister passed away after intermittent battles with cancer. She was 30 years old.

Some people leave us way too early. And we grieve over these. From their vantage point however, now safe in Jesus' arms, seeing him face to face and not through a glass darkly, they are in paradise. What would we do without this hope? And as St Paul says, hope is not wishful thinking. Hope does not disappoint us (Rom 5.5).

Mystery Spoiled by a Word

One motif for understanding theological method is built on three approaches that work together in balance: Cataphatic, Pietistic, and Apophatic*. Cataphatic is the part of doing theology that deals with reason. This involves using one's mind towards the development of doctrine. The Pietistic approach involves the worshipful aspect of knowing God. This requires that we experience God and interpret belief about God existentially.

The third approach, Apophatic, deals with the aspect of mystery. While Pietistic and Cataphatic approaches have much to affirm intellectually and existentially, Apophatic approaches preserve the aspect of mystery within Christian theology, while at the same time affirming reason and experience. It supports the idea that we are limited in not only our knowledge of God, but our ability to know God. This is due to epistemological challenges from the human perspective, as well as to the nature of God - who is infinite, omniscient, and wholly 'other'.

These three aspects of theological method provide a nice balance for one another. If the Pietistic approach is too accentuated then the emotional and existential is too emphasized. If the Cataphatic approach is too emphasized then our reason will become god, and the search for truth primarily an intellectual pursuit. If the Apophatic is too emphasized then it's easy to, as one of my professors used to say, "punt on second down." We will too quickly chalk everything up to mystery instead of doing the hard work of discovering truth. 

But despite the contribution of all three, the Apophatic approach is especially interesting to me. This may be due to the traditions from which I come, which speak very little about mystery. It may be due also to my lack of knowledge regarding Eastern theology.

I am reading Brennan Manning's book The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus (previously titled Lion and Lamb) from which this quote comes:

"When Catherine of Sienna, a dynamic contemplative in action, was asked to describe the God of her personal experience, she cried, "He is pazzo d'amore, ebro di'amore" - crazed with love, drunk with love. Yet her words are feeble and inadequate, as are all human words, because Mystery is spoiled by a word."

Words are useful, and I think they help our understanding of God - after all, God speaks to us through his word. But although they contribute to our understanding of God, they don't complete it. Knowing God is a holistic affair - mind, body, heart, soul, strength, experience, etc. God desires our whole selves. 

But the inadequacy of words is not an excuse for not using them. The word musterion appears in Paul's letter's often, describing the work of the gospel in bringing the Gentiles into the fold and creating what we know as the church. The mysteries of God are the deep and ineffable things of God which we believe and proclaim, but only partially understand. Perhaps on the day when we see Christ face to face we'll fully understand those truths. Whether or not we'll have the words then to describe what we experience remains to be seen.



*I have Dr. Scott Horrell to thank for introducing me to this method.

Sometimes You Just Need a Drink

Nothing deeply theological here...just a great video. It's an old one, but one I came across again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yolUoethgHU&feature=player_embedded

Friendship and the Incarnation

I've learned a lot about friendship in my 30's. One of the things I've learned is that I have often not been a good friend to others. I tend to be 'out of sight out of mind' with friends, I don't follow up well, and I don't initiate simply spending time together. My wife often teases me for not keeping up with old friends, and, sadly, it's true. But over the past two years I've learned more about the positive aspects of being a friend, and mainly because I've learned from the example of new friends.

This is on my mind because my good friend Jon Lamb just moved to Kansas. We said our goodbyes on Saturday after twelve men from our church packed his Penske truck (in 45 minutes by the way), ate breakfast tacos and bid farewell. Jon and April have become dear friends to us and we will miss them already. I've learned a lot about being a good friend from Jon as well as from my friend Chris Kedroski and many others in our church.

Although I haven't always been a great friend, I've had the good fortune of having a lot of friends throughout my life. In college I had John 15.15 posted on my dorm room wall: "I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything I have learned from my Father I have made known to you." I have often thought about what a sublime truth that is - the second Person of the Trinity, the Incarnate Son of God, calls us friends.

I think it's interesting that in John 15 Jesus calls us friends based on what he's learned from the Father. It's not only the information passed on by the Father, to Jesus, and then to his disciples, but the example the Father sets for the Son that reveals the Father's will for his Son and all his children. Since the disciples are learning to follow Jesus in the context of being his friends, I wonder what role friendship plays in local church discipleship. Many of my formal discipleship relationships have not been in the context of natural friendships. In some cases friendships grew, in others they didn't. But I think much of my discipleship has come with 'rubbing shoulders' with friends who also have their eyes fixed on Jesus.

Praise God for his Son, my Savior, my Lord, and my friend. And praise God for friendships that help me to more like Jesus. 

Luther Kissing the Pope's Feet

On October 31st, 1999 the Lutheran World Council of Churches and the Catholic Church signed a document called The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, after many years of ecumenical dialogue on a doctrine essential to the distinction between these two major traditions. For some, this was a time of ecumenical and ecclesiastical success. For others, it was a time of compromise, or even a threat to the essence of the gospel. In either case, it was a step towards differing traditions understanding one another, and finding commonality after centuries of dispute.

Rereading Paul Together: Protestant and Catholic Dialogues on Justification, ed. David Aune, is a compilation of articles from both Lutheran and Catholic scholars. Some of the articles are responses to one another, and others are dealing with some of the major issues in Pauline studies, especially over the last 30 years of research. The various articles are some of the most balanced, honest, charitable and irenic of any scholarly articles I've ever read. The ecumenical intention is refreshing, not because the writers are seeking compromise but because there is a concerted effort to go back to the biblical text for the basis of Christian theology.

One of the most interesting quotes was Lutheran theologian Michael Root's reference to Luther's quote in his commentary on Galatians: "All we aim for is that the glory of God be preserved and that the righteousness of faith remain pure and sound. Once this has been established, namely that God alone justifies us solely by His grace through Christ, we are willing not only to bear the pope aloft on our hands but also to kiss his feet." Although Luther is likely speaking in hyperbole, we also know what he thought of the pope. These are strong words.

Root's point (and what much of book reiterates) is that distinctives within Lutheran theology, especially over and against Rome, may be eventually unnecessary if dialogue such as the Joint Declaration continues to bring together various traditions. The challenge is seeking common ground, while clinging to the true, biblical gospel - and of course agreeing on the nature of the gospel itself. It's a challenging endeavor, but one worth the fight if ecumencity among Christians across denominations is something to be actually realized.

John Owen Pt 2: One Act of God

John Owen's classic The Death of Death in the Death of Christ is laborious, arduous, and daunting. His style of writing (I am told by my friend Jon Lamb) belongs to an older age of English prose that began to change significantly not long after the book was published in 1684. Nevertheless it is a fascinating and compelling work on the significance of the Christ's atonement.

What I find to be particularly compelling is Owen's ability to tie all the facets of Christ's atonement into one singular, focused and purposeful work - a work that begins with God's intention for the elect and ends with his finished work for his people. Christ's oblation, intercession, justification, sanctification, calling, glorification and future hope are all facets of the same intention in God to save those for whom he has died. This unifying picture of God's work in Christ raises stirring questions for those who hold to some form of Arminianism and hypothetical Universalism. One question in particular is: Why would Christ suffer on the cross on behalf of sinners, paying for their sins, only to have them suffer again for those same sins in hell? This question implies that Christ's work is efficacious, or it does what it was intended to do. This implication of course is predicated on a view of election in which God specifically chooses, by the mystery of his will and for his glory, those who will inherit eternal life.

I've always had a bent towards Calvinism. I cut my teeth on the John Piper school of theology, embracing an Anabaptist/Radical Reformation view of the sacraments, and a staunch Calvinist view of Soteriology. However, I've always danced the line on whether I was a 4 or 5 point Calvinist. Of course a true Calvinist would say there is no such thing as a 4 point Calvinist, that's an Arminian. And I would see their point. I guess having attended DTS and having been involved in a tradition/movement that expressed a belief in unlimited atonement (drop the L in TULIP), I've always struggled to take a stand on the issue concerning the great question, "For whom did Christ die?"

But Owen's book makes me much less comfortable with the idea of unlimited atonement, specifically because I believe in unconditional election. If God, before the creation of the universe, chose us, sent his Son as the perfect God/Man to suffer and die for our sins, justified us in Christ, adopted us, sanctified, glorified and gave everlasting hope and life to us, then why would he only do part of that for others? In other words, why would God send his Son as the perfect God/Man to suffer and die for the non-elects' sins but do nothing else for them in the aforementioned sentence? Would he not die for those who he elected? Would he not adopt those whom he justified? Why would he die for those he never intended to elect, justify, call, adopt, sanctify and glorify?

The point is this: Embracing unconditional election and understanding God's work in Christ for the sake of lost sinners as one singular, interconnected, intentional work from beginning to end changes the way we think of the atonement. I believe that passages such as 1John 2.2, John 3.16, and 2Pet 3.9 make it difficult to not see God's love for all humankind. But although I don't have time to expound on it, I will say that Owen's arguments for not understanding 'world' 'all' and other seemingly universal words as meaning "every man, woman and child who ever lived, is living now, and ever will live" are compelling, and the opposing view seemingly indefensible.

I have to bring up my friend Jon Lamb again, who always asks, "So what's at stake?" Why does this matter? That part, I'm still figuring out. Often times practical issues as they relate to evangelism are discussed when limited vs unlimited atonement is in question. But hopefully one would not think that embracing limited atonement somehow devalues evangelism. I suppose it could, but it doesn't have to. The truth is that, unless you're a complete Universalist, the atonement in Christian orthodoxy will always be limited to some degree or another. Even an Arminian would admit that some people do not place their personal trust in Christ and thus pay for this sins. What good is Christ's death on their behalf in that case? Unlimited atonement brings me no additional comfort, in fact it's that much more heartbreaking considering that one's sins were paid for, and yet they rejected  the free gift in Christ. Limited atonement (or particular atonement) in fact is comforting, because it says that the work God intended in Christ for his children is one complete work with many facets, initiated before time began, and comes with a promise to be completed, to the glory of God.