Theology for the Masses

In this wildly ambitious work, Moreland seeks to cure Christianity from the malaise that plagues – the death of drama; he is mostly successful, though not for the reasons he would give. Written for a popular audience, the Kingdom Triangle is divided into two sections; the first attempts to show us the “crisis of our age,” attacking Naturalism and Postmodernism as the destroyers of drama. The second part is more hopeful, and is Moreland’s attempt to construct a solution to the problem by means of three foci: knowledge, the soul and supernaturalism. With his insistence upon objectivity and reluctance to engage the best of Christian postmodern thought, readers risk being more entrenched against any other approach to knowledge and theology. However, the other parts of the work shine in comparison. When Moreland is attacking naturalism and working to instill drama he is much more effective. This combination of strengths and weaknesses make this book a minefield for the lay reader. There is much good to be had, but one can easily get the impression that all postmodern and emerging Christians are to just as feared and protected against as the Catholic Church.[1]

Drama for your mamma (and the rest of the Body of Christ)

The chief contribution of this work is Moreland’s drive to instill drama in our lives. Moreland’s use of drama is interesting and is the most important theme in the book. Moreland sets it up as the life full of meaning and purpose contrasting it with the drabness of everyday life. His awareness of the hunger for drama is startling and speaks to a need which likely resonates with much of his readership. Wise are the ways Moreland suggests Christians resurrect drama and acute are the causes he identifies for its crucifixion. He identifies the narcissism, individualism, passivity, and immaturity of the self that our popular culture produces;[2] and advocates the flourishing of the self, which includes the development of self-denial, character, and the spiritual disciplines.

Don’t, Stop, Manifesting the Spirit…

Perhaps the most controversial part of the book for the target audience is Moreland’s insistence that we recover the activity of the Spirit in our daily lives. He calls this “being naturally supernatural”[3] and attacks Cessationists. In great contrast to his dealings with Postmodernist Christians and Catholics, he advocates love and charity towards people on different places on the continuum of the Spirit’s activities.[4] This advice is much needed in the North American Church today. He primarily challenges Cessationists by appealing to personal stories and the numbers of Charismatics in the world. Oddly enough, Moreland does not use Scripture to challenge Cessationists. Given his high view of and condemnations by means of Scripture, one would have expected the same here. Ultimately, his wisdom, gentleness, and honesty are instructive in this section.

I refute him thus!

“I refute him thus!” was Samuel Johnson’s exclamation as he broke his foot upon a rock in an attempt to refute Berkley’s idealism.[5] It is also method of attack Moreland employs in his critiques of Naturalism and Postmodernity.[6] Moreland’s treatment of Postmodernism is the chief disappointment Kingdom Triangle. Moreland, the unapologetic modernist, [7] constructs the frailest version of postmodernism possible for the purposes of rendering asunder with the mighty blows of the three-sentence-proof. Moreland goes so far as to dismiss and critique of his characterization of postmodernism by saying: “For one thing, my description of postmodernism is an accurate account that fairly captures and understanding of postmodernism … [so] I can hardly be accused of offering a caricature of the movement.”[8] This rather grumpy, defensive, and dismissive tone is found throughout his discussion of Naturalism, Postmodernism, and Knowledge. Moreland unfortunately, for one of Evangelical Christianity’s most highly regarded philosophers, reduces all of postmodernity into a “synonym for deconstructive relativism.”[9] Too often Moreland attacks his constructed postmodernism[10] with simplistic proofs which bypass the real issues at hand. An excellent example of this is his discussion of objectivity and language.[11]

This seems like a rhetorical strategy to appeal to the value of common sense and anti-intellectualism of his intended audience. This, combined with a lack of real engagement of the best of Christina postmodern theory will hinder the intellectual development of his readers in the wake of Modernity’s decline. It reeks of entrenchment rather than engagement.

The Gentle Curmudgeon

One final criticism of Kingdom Triangle is the bipolar writing style that Moreland employs. When attacking Naturalism and Postmodernism and constructing a theory of knowledge, Moreland writes in a grouchy, dismissive, and immature tone. He repeatedly deems things “sad” and uses brute force to argue his claims (see his listing to all the verse in the Bible that contain the word knowledge).[12] This is contrasted with the genuine love and concern from which he writes his other chapters.

Conclusion

Ultimately this book is a mix of the best and worst from Moreland. Moreland argues for the best possible modernist/foundationalist Christianity, and attacks the worst postmodern secularism, which he ties to all Christian postmodern thought. However, With the exception of the chapter on Knowledge, Christians would be wise to heed his words concerning the resurrection of drama. I would modify Moreland’s argument (that Naturalism and Postmodernism have caused the death of drama) to the Church’s acceptance of Modernism and lack of a response to its death have caused and sustained the death of drama. It is a shame this was not a two-volume work.

Notes:

[1] Moreland is deeply skeptical in this work about the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church , warning evangelical Christians to steer clear of their spiritual development classes (p.159).

[2] Moreland, Kingdom Triangle, 142-145.

[3] Ibid., 182.

[4] Ibid., 178-179.

[5] For more on this, see Dinesh D’Souza, What’s so great about Christianity (Regnery Publishing, 2007), 171.

[6] While Moreland and I agree on the perils of Naturalism, Moreland has a too narrow of a definition of postmodernism, see notes 12 and 13.

[7] See his infatuation with the self and objectivity, and unquestionable support of the correspondence theory of truth in Moreland, Kingdom Triangle, 78-88. and dismissal of critiques of modernity, such as the role of language creating worlds rather than nakedly describing them in Ibid., 85, 87.

[8] Ibid., 87.

[9] Franke, Character of Theology, The, 21.

[10] It is difficult to construct a positive definition of the varied modes of postmodernist theory. I follow Franke in maintaining that Postmodernism is best defined minimally as the critique of Modernity which requires “radical surgery.” See Ibid.

[11] Compare Moreland, Kingdom Triangle, 86. with Stanley J. Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996), sec. The Problem of Language.

[12] Moreland, Kingdom Triangle, 114-120. Moreland opts for the brute-force technique for arguing that our knowledge must be certain (by his criteria and his criteria only, which happens to be foundationalist in nature).

From Julia Esquivel in Threatened with Resurrection: Prayers and Poems from an Exiled Guatemalan (Elgin: The Brethern Press, 1982), 79-91.  I love how it uses Biblical language and themes to remind us at what price our comfort comes.  I’m thinking hard this holiday season about the intersection between religion, politics, exploitation, and thankfulness.  I pray that we can slow our lives down to the point that we loose our lusts of luxury.

In the third year of the massacres
by Lucas and the other coyotes
against the poor of Guatemala
I was lead by the Spirit into the desert

And on that eve
of Thanksgiving Day
I had a vision of Babylon:

The City sprang forth arrogantly
from an enormous platform
of dirty smoke produced
by motor vehicles, machinery
and contamination from smokestacks.

It was as it all the petroleum
from a violated earth
was being consumed
by the Lords of capital
and was slowly rising
obscuring the face
of the Sun of Justice
and the Ancient of Days

Each day false prophets
invited the inhabitants
of the Unchaste City
to kneel before the idols
of gluttony
money
and death
Idolaters from all nations
were being converted to the American Way of Life

The Spirit told me
in the River of death
flows the blood of many peoples
sacrificed without mercy
and removed a thousand times from their lands
the blood of Kekchis, of Panzos
of blacks from Hati of Guaranis from Paraguay
of the peoples sacrificed for “development”
in the Trans-Amazonic strip
the blood of the Indians’ ancestors
who lived on these lands, of those who
even now are kept hostage in the Great Mountain
and on the Black Hills of Dakota
by the guardians of the beast…

My soul was tortured like this
for three and a half days
and a great weariness weighted upon my breast
I felt the suffering of my people very deeply!

In tears I prostrated myself
and cried out: “Lord, what can i do?
Come to me Lord, I wish to die among my people!
Without strength, I waited for an answer.
After a long silence
and heavy obscurity
The One who sits on the throne
to JUDGE THE NATIONS
spoke in a soft whisper
in the secret recesses of my heart:

You have to denounce their idolatry
in good times and in bad
Force them to hear the truth
for what is impossible to humans
is possible for God.

I’d like to direct you all to this article from the New York Times Magazine about Mark Driscoll and the “new Calvinism.” It’s really interesting, and definitely highlights some important issues surrounding both Driscoll and the (relatively) recent Calvinism resurgence.

I find this quote, from the final page of the article, especially interesting:

Nowhere is the connection between Driscoll’s hypermasculinity and his Calvinist theology clearer than in his refusal to tolerate opposition at Mars Hill. The Reformed tradition’s resistance to compromise and emphasis on the purity of the worshipping community has always contained the seeds of authoritarianism: John Calvin had heretics burned at the stake and made a man who casually criticized him at a dinner party march through the streets of Geneva, kneeling at every intersection to beg forgiveness. Mars Hill is not 16th-century Geneva, but Driscoll has little patience for dissent. In 2007, two elders protested a plan to reorganize the church that, according to critics, consolidated power in the hands of Driscoll and his closest aides. Driscoll told the congregation that he asked advice on how to handle stubborn subordinates from a “mixed martial artist and Ultimate Fighter, good guy” who attends Mars Hill. “His answer was brilliant,” Driscoll reported. “He said, ‘I break their nose.’ ” When one of the renegade elders refused to repent, the church leadership ordered members to shun him. One member complained on an online message board and instantly found his membership privileges suspended. “They are sinning through questioning,” Driscoll preached. John Calvin couldn’t have said it better himself.

I’m personally not a very big fan of Driscoll. I think what he’s done on the cultural front is important and interesting…but this article highlights the exact reasons why his hyper-authoritarian militaristic brand of Christianity (and the Calvinist roots behind it) scares me. Any thoughts, comments, reflections?

Over at the Karis blog, a local Acts 29 Church plant, head pastor Kevin Larson had the following to say about The Shack:

I’ve posted this before, but I keep hearing people recommend The Shack, so I wanted to put it up here again. People argue that the author is just using metaphors, but the point of metaphors is to accurately represent the realities to which they point. To be clear, God is not an elderly African-American woman. And, no, I haven’t read it. Sorry if that bothers you. I have too many books to read and too little time. [Video of Mark Driscoll]

The following is my response.  I’d love to get your input on the issue (or head over there and talk about it):

I have no problem with you not reading the book – I know I don’t have the time to read it either (even though I want to do so). However, why exactly does the portrayal of God the Father as an African American woman bother you so much? From what I understand God (in the story) shows up as a n African American woman because of the main character’s deep wounds from his own father.

I am sure that we both agree that God the father is not male nor female. Genesis 1-2 teaches us that the image of God contains both the female and the male aspects. As such, the "fatherness" of God the Father is more a social description than a sexual description. God the Father as an African American woman displayed these social aspects, but in the gender of the female. As a matter of fact, I think that God the Father shows up as a male later on in the book. (I am not sure, however, I am only going off of descriptions of the work by students of mine that have read it and statements by the author during and interview at Catalyst this past month.) Any description of God in English (or any language for that matter) can only possibly give a flawed and partial picture of God. The finite can not contain fully the infinite.

Given this and the above, I don’t have a problem with God the Father being described with this metaphor – and that is how the author intended the book – as a metaphor. The book is designed to get the read to ponder the mystery of the Trinity and push the reader into repairing their relationship with God.  It is meant to be purely metaphorical – not a systematic theology.  The author is fully aware that this is not an accurate description of the trinity – and that a fully accurate statement on the trinity is impossible.

I guess what worries me is the aversion to a book that you have not read and statements that seem to contradict the author’s intended purpose.  The fact that the only stated problem with the book is its depiction of God the Father as an African American woman concerns me.  I know that your role as a head pastor means that you are responsible for the teaching of the people in your church and that you need to ward off false doctrine.  I just want to encourage you to reevaluate you stance towards this book.

But, with that said, the work you all (Karis) in the community is inspiring to other churches – keep up the good work of growing and cultivating the Kingdom of God!

Thoughts?

I’m a member of a local community of Christians who reject eschatologies that posit a rapture, an antichrist, all that jazz.  We read the Apocalypse of John along with other ancient Christian, Jewish, and Roman apocalypses and find that it points to a veiled (read: symbolic) critique of the Roman empire and about the Christian’s place in that context. [1]

We see one full and final 2nd coming of Jesus, no half-coming where the good are raptured.   [2]

We perceive ourselves as a minority in the larger local church, Columbia, Missouri, and Midwestern Christian Communities.  Also, many of us personally used to buy into a rapture view, myself included. 

I bring all of this background information up because I see a disturbing trend in my community and I am not sure how exactly to constructively confront it.  We have a tendency to belittle Christians who stand within a raptural pale with a disturbing frequency.  And our group disdain is not limited to those that differ from us in terms of eschatology.  Among others, we belittle those who think violence can be justified, those who think that the republicans are a good voting option, and those that hold the myths in the Old Testament as literal history. 

We are not merely stating our disagreement.  With our internal rhetoric, we bemoan their ignorance, laugh at their theologies, and demean and ridicule behind their backs. [3] You see, we consider ourselves holders of the secret flame, as wise women in the midst of fools.  That is how we carry ourselves.  And that is wrong of us to do.

I am sure some of this comes from coping methods.  Some of us feel as though we have awoken from a lie (or series of lies) and we therefore project our feelings of past foolishness onto those similar to our past selves.  Additionally, since we perceive ourselves as a minority, our actions function as defense mechanisms. However, this is not a good way to deal with either our past theologies nor our perceived minority position.

What we need is a helpful and constructive way to engage these Christian others. Now, I agree completely that our interpretations are better interpretations. [4]   What we need to avoid is criticizing the people instead of their viewpoints. Also, we need to remember that these viewpoints help create and maintain our sisters’ and brothers’ identity. When we flippantly disregard their viewpoints, we are flippantly disregarding their identity.

What we need to do is to engage and dialogue with the Christian other instead of demonizing them. They have good reasons for thinking what they think, whether it be past experiences or past interpretive histories, etcetera.

I don’t know how to do that effectively nor how to help my community to do the same. Any suggestions? [5]

1. See the following:

   · Borgen, Peder. “Moses, Jesus, and the Roman Emperor Observations in Philo’s Writings and the Revelation of John.” Novum Testamentum 38, no. 2 (April 1996): 145-159.

   · Callahan, Allen Dwight. “The Language of Apocalypse.” The Harvard Theological Review 88, no. 4 (October 1995): 453-470.

   · Clemen, Lic. Carl. “The Jewish Apocalypses.” The Biblical World 34, no. 1 (July 1909): 33-44.

   · Frankfurter, David. “Apocalypses Real and Alleged in the Mani Codex.” Numen 44, no. 1 (January 1997): 60-73.

   · Maier, Harry O. “Staging the Gaze: Early Christian Apocalypses and Narrative Self-Representation.” The Harvard Theological Review 90, no. 2 (April 1997): 131-154.

   · Porter, Frank C. “The Place of Apocalyptical Conceptions in the Thought of Paul.” Journal of Biblical Literature 41, no. 1/2 (1922): 183-204.

   · Shodde, George H. “The Jewish Apocalypses.” The Biblical World 6, no. 2 (August 1895): 97-104.

   · Smith, Marian W. “The Apocalypse of John.” College Art Journal 9, no. 3 (Spring 1950): 295-307.

   · Votaw, Clyde Weber. “The Apocalypse of John: I. Jewish Apocalyptic Literature.” The Biblical World 31, no. 1 (January 1908): 32-40. [↩]

2. For instance, we explain two classical rapture passages, 1Thess 4:15-17 and Matthew 24:32-44, as follows. 

   · 1Thess: When a king would come into one of his cities in ancient times, he would ride up and stop just outside.  Then the leaders of the city would come out to greet him and then they would all go into the city together.  The King was always escorted into a city.  This is the imagery the readers would have recognized and we should pattern our interpretation of the text after. 

   · Matthew:  Notice a) the reference to the Flood and b) who is taken and who is left.  Who was taken away in the flood of Noah?  The unfaithful.  If it is to be the same as then, then those left behind when the son of man returns will be the righteous instead of them being raptured away!  This also fits well with Jesus’ imagery of the weeds being thrown into the fire and the wheat being left. [↩]

3. I am not just pointing the finger at everyone else in my community.  I am sometimes an active participant in this. [↩]
4. or I would hold other ones [↩]
5. If you are a part of my community, let me know if you think I am being fair here or not. This is how I perceive things currently. I am not trying to attack any one person. I just want us to grow ourselves and the Kingdom of God. [↩]

Faith lived out.

H/T: Scott Parsons.

So I found this quote by Alvin Plantinga taken from his magnum opus “Warranted Christian Belief.” To give a little context to the quote, Plantinga had been talking about his Calvin/Aquinas model for the necessity of the “internal instigation of the Holy Spirit” due to the noetic effects of sins. For fundamentalists like Plantinga (and myself) it offers some humor and insight.

“But isn’t this just endorsing a wholly outmoded and discredited fundamentalism, that condition than which, according to many academics, none lesser can be conceived? I fully realize that the dreaded f-word will be trotted out to stigmatize any model of this kind. Before responding, however, we must first look into the use of this term ‘fundamentalist’. On the most common contemporary academic use of the term, it is a term of abuse or disapprobation, rather like ’son of a bitch’, more exactly ’sonovabitch’, or perhaps still more exactly (at least according to those authorities who look to the Old West as normative on matters of pronunciation) ’sumbitch.’ When the term is used in this way, no definition, no definition of it is ordinarily given. (If you called someone a sumbitch, would you fell obligated first to define the term?) Still, there is a bit more to the meaning of ‘fundamentalist’ (in this widely current use); it isn’t simply a term of abuse. In addition to its emotive force, it does have some cognitive content, and ordinarily denotes relatively conservative theological views. That makes it more like ’stupid sumbitch’ (or maybe ‘fascist sumbitch’?) than ’sumbitch’ simpliciter. It isn’t exactly like that term either, however, because its cognitive content can expand and contract on demand; its content seems to depend on who is using it. In the mouths of certain liberal theologians, for example, it tends to denote any who accept traditional Christianity, including Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Barth; in the mouths of devout secularists like Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett, it tends to denote anyone who believes there is such a person as God. The explanation that the term has a certain indexical element: its cognitive content is given by the phrase ‘considerably to the right, theologically speaking, of me and my enlightened friends.’ The full meaning of the term, therefore (in this use), can be given by something like ’stupid sumbitch whose theological opinions are considerably to the right of mine’” (Warranted Christian Belief, pp. 244-245).

from the hands and heart of a white, anglo-saxon protestant male:

Today is the day many in our nation have set aside to remember and honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his dream of racial equality. I often wonder how seriously we take this any more. After all, I’ve heard over the past several years countless Americans of European descent choose to speak of “reverse-racism”, bemoan Affirmative Action as outdated and unfair and of course rage against the swelling tide of illegal immigrants. This is nothing new in our country. In the immigration swells of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, “white people” were just as racist. The difference was that ‘we’ were discriminating against Italian and Irish immigrants. In fact, the rhetoric used to describe those immigrants was strikingly similar to that used of blacks and now of the current tide of immigrants. Now, however, most every American considers Irish and Italian peoples to be nothing more than another flavor of ‘white’, and even black persons are welcomed by the white majority so long as they conform to white culture. [1]

No, America’s racism grows out of the same old problem – we are afraid of that which is unlike us. We have not become less racist; rather, we’ve managed to incorporate more of those formerly Other races into ourselves. We demand that you look like us (as much as possible), speak like us (English only, please), believe like us (liberal, Judeo-Christian) [2] and act like us (2.5 kids, nuclear family, share our values, etc.). So long as you conform to We, you may stay here, and you may thrive here. But if you do not, if you choose not to conform and instead to celebrate your distinctiveness, then you are a threat to We. You take Our jobs and You threaten to undermine Our values and Our way of life. So long as You demand that you be allowed to remain You, You will have no place among We. We will drive you out, and We will build walls to keep You out, where You belong.

And this is why Dr. King’s dream is still so far from reality. We are not yet a country where a person is judged by “the quality of his character”. We are still judged by the color of our skin, by the type of clothing we wear, by the words we speak (and the accent with which we speak them), by the god we worship (and the theologies to which we hold), and by the nation to which we pledge allegiance.

Of course most of you know that I hold no special love in my heart for America. What breaks my heart about our continuing racism this is that the Church is one of the biggest advocates of continuing racism in this country. Sunday morning continues to be ‘the most segregated hour of the week’. Many do not even see this as a problem; a leader at my church has said repeatedly when I bring up the idea of working for a more integrated congregation, “They’re more comfortable in their own churches.” Nearly every Evangelical with whom I speak about immigration thinks that a person should be required to learn English to even cross the border. And at the Crystal Cathedral’s ReThink conference this weekend, prominent Evangelical leader Chuck Colson made this statement: “Islam is a tragically regressive religion, because it has proven itself incapable of producing a great civilization.” Now, I’m going to blog about this more extensively later, but these attitudes pervade God’s Church. And we are not meant to be so.

We are to welcome the alien, the stranger among us, because we were once aliens in Egypt. We are to welcome the Other into ourselves just as they are, for so has God opened Godself to us even while we were yet sinners. We are to offer love because we first were loved. I have a dream that one day God will teach God’s people what it means to be God’s children. Or maybe I should dream instead that one day we will have eyes to see the object lessons God’s placed all around us, and ears to hear the cries of the stranger in our lands, ears that will remember our own cries, and note how similar They are to We. Not because we speak the same language or worship the same way or look the same or believe the same. But because we are all children of the same God, and we all have equal need of the same redemption.

May God give us eyes of faith to see the reality of what it means to be human today. And may God give us ears to hear the cries of God’s children who are still in bondage. And may God teach us how to love the Other as perfectly and redemptively as God has.

“It’s a long way from the shadows in my cave up to Your reality, to watch the sunlight taking over. Take me over.”

– Switchfoot, “Home”

1. Consider sitcoms such as the Cosbys, Family Matters and Fresh Prince of Bel Aire, in which the family structure, economic status and weekly problems mirrored that of white suburban America much moreso than they reflected (primarily urban) black culture] [↩]
2. Not, of course, political liberalism, but true philosophic liberalism, which sees religion primarily as a private, individual concern rather than as a corporate reality/worldview. [↩]

Question of the day (this time with an answer):

How do we, as Christians, conceptualize the Other?

How should we treat these people, both to their face and within our communities while they are not present? They think that they know how to best relate to that which is “wholly Other” – whether it be God, gods, the numinous, whatever you want to call it(s). We think we know how to as well. What do we do with such an impasse? Shall we let loose upon them the canon and be done with it? Do we assume all roads generate the same journey?

A good friend of mine and fellow author here at Theology for the Masses, JR Madill, navigated these very issues a few weeks ago in a talk on Christianity and Pluralism. Now, I don’t want to give away what he had to say, but I do want to say that I found his reply to be quite good and worthy of your consideration.

One of the more disconcerting passages in all the Bible is the rape of Tamar, David’s daughter, by her half-brother Amnon (2 Samuel 13). As the narrative goes, Tamar is “loved” by her brother because he was tormented by her beauty. He feigns an illness to be alone with Tamar. When she brings him food to eat, he seizes her and rapes her despite her fervent resistance. After the rape, Amnon loathes his sister more than he ever “loved” her. He thrusts her away as a slave, a piece of property which was expended and now retains no value. To Amnon, she is no longer “Tamar,” she is now “this woman.” She is no longer a person who is “loved,” she is chattel to be discharged. [1]

Amnon learned this behavior from his father – that is, he learned to treat people, especially women, as property instead of humans created in God’s image. Just in the previous chapter David is finally confronted about his rape of Bathsheba and his clandestine execution of Uriah. People and their lives were mere objects to be consumed to David. He cared little for love, for family, for holiness. He cared only for consumption, and people are just another thing to be procured, retain, owned, and conquered.

What I find interesting in this whole matter is how intercourse and economics relate. As the narrative advances, we find Solomon, in the climax of his rule, with infinite wealth and thousands of sex-slaves. Women are objects to be owned – he too learned this from his father. Relationships, love, or devotion have no place in his world. Only objects exist, objects which are bought and sold, owned and operated, controlled and dominated. [2]

When economics and power become the chief agenda of a people, the objectification of others comes to dictate the landscape. This is particularly the case with sex. Sex becomes nothing more than, in our world, two consumers devouring one another, envision the other as an item whose individual purpose is to satisfy my desires without regards to the consequences of this behavior. That’s what consumerism is at its nastiest – a inexhaustible sport of stockpiling objects for one’s own agenda without considering the consequences of that consumption either for the earth, the other person, the community, or the world. It’s all about the ego.

Intercourse and economics – isn’t staggering how a person’s view on one stimulates certain assumptions about the other? When one views economics as merely a means of consumption and gaining wealth, power, and property, one will perceive sex the same way. But if economics is principally about honoring God through the giving away of one’s possessions, one will see sex differently as well. It is not about my desires, it is not about my consumption; it is about the other person, their will, their enjoyment, their desire. People are no longer objects to be owned and dominated (such as in pornography), they are people made in the Image of God! The denial of the ego in economic areas translates into the denial of the ego in the bedroom. This is why Paul lists greed right along side a bunch of sexual sins in Colossians 3. He realized the connection!

Its seems, then, that if we yearn for holiness, maybe our deity of covetousness and wealth ought to go first. If economics is linked to intercourse, imagine what else it is relates to – violence, anger, division, quarreling, pride! Maybe dispossession isn’t only about abnegation, [3] but about sanctification in all areas of life.

1. there is some credence to the thought that this objectification of women is inherent within the Torah. After all, women are listed among the property not to be coveted in the 10 Commandments. [↩]
2. Solomon’s disregard for others in favor of his own economic advancement is well documented among biblical scholars. This actually ends up splitting the kingdom after he dies, if you remember. [↩]
3. Thanks Theotica! [↩]

I don’t know if anyone here is interested or not, since most of us are probably in school and are busy beyond belief, but Reformed Theological Seminary has put the audio of some of its courses on iTunes at iTunes U. They cover some decent topics like both OT and NT, philosophy, ethics, apologetics, systematic theology, the Puritans, church history. I’m thinking I might check it out and see if it might be worthy listening to. But as you can no doubt tell, the classes will be taught from a primarily Reformed perspective. The Puritans class is taught by J. I. Packer himself, so if you can’t stand to listen to Reformed theologians (there are some perspectives I just can’t handle listening to i.e. dispensationalists) then you might want to pass. You never know though, it just might be worth your time–if you have any.

H/T: DesiringGod Blog

In Matthew 5:21-22, Jesus equates hate, insult and name-calling with murder. For a long time, I just accepted the common explanation that Jesus is “reinterpreting” the Law, pushing for a “deeper” understanding of “what God really meant”. As I blogged several days ago, however, I am beginning to see that Jesus was reading the Law through the lens of love defined as self-sacrifice. Thus, all commandments must be reexamined through that lens. And so what of “Thou shalt not murder”?

What is murder, exactly? In his compelling analysis of the Cain and Able myth, Volf argues (quite persuasively) that Cain murders Abel because he refuses to redefine himself. Able is the quintessential nothing – he is the second son, he is a shepherd, even his name means something like “vapor”. Cain, on the other hand is strong. He is a farmer, the first son, strong and able (hahaha, get it?). For no good reason we can see, God chooses Abel. God. Chooses. Abel. Cain cannot accept this; the very fact of Abel’s existence now calls his own understanding of himself into question. And, rather than reevaluate himself, Cain chooses to remove that which caused him existential dissonance. He strikes down his brother, the Other, thereby allowing him to maintain his identity unchanged.

If we allow this story to be paradigmatic for understanding the process of murder (and I know it’s not going to be 100%, so let’s agree not to get caught up in the details), I think this sheds some interesting light on Jesus’ comments. Murder arises from a challenge to the integrity of our Selfs. So too I suggest do hate, insult and labeling. Rarely do we hate something that does not affect us; apathy is a much commoner response to these nonentities. Our hatred arises from that which is a challenge to our Selves. Consider, for example, racism in the States – the races that bore the brunt of race-based hatred (Irish, Italian, African, etc) were always those races whose proximity to the dominant culture forced those in power to question and to reevaluate their assumptions about what made them human. We have a tendency toward self-preservation and stability; it seems to be human nature to lash out in anger against that which threatens us. Insult and labeling are public means by which we can consign the Other to safe categories that no longer threaten us.

And so I can see why Jesus considers murder, hatred, name-calling and labeling to be related. They are really all symptoms of the same problem: our tendency to objectify and dehumanize that which threatens our Selfs, our identities. Jesus calls us to lay down our Selfs in favor of embracing the Other. If we cannot allow the Other into our Selfs, to challenge and reshape us, then we will never be able to allow God, who is entirely more Other than any human, to enter into us, to shape us and to change us. Perhaps this is what Jesus means when he teaches us a few verses later to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” and then follows that with, “If you do not forgive sin here on Earth, neither will your Father forgive your sins in heaven.” We are not in a place to accept God’s forgiveness, to repent, unless we can learn how to do the same down here. Only the peacemakers are called children of God.

And let’s not reduce this to cause-effect. We miss the point if we pull a magic formula, a one-to-one correlation between forgiveness on Earth and forgiveness in Heaven. Rather, we learn to be forgiven, to live as the forgiven, in the kingdom of Heaven that is coming to Earth, even as we learn to forgive sin here on Earth.

“Dead man, is it being high that makes you alive, that makes you leave behind three boys and a wife? …As the track marks work their way up your arm, my mother taught my brothers and I not to call you ‘Daddy’, but to call you ‘Father’. And I believe there is something here to be learned of Grace, ’cause I can’t help but love you.”
– “The Widow”, As Cities Burn