Process & Outcome

Imagine that you and another person each follow the same decision-making process and yet end up with different choices. Why? What has happened? Why isn't the process itself determinative?

What has happened when you follow the same steps in making a decision as someone else, yet you reach a different conclusion? The most logical inference to draw from this is that some other element--integral to the scenario or the decision at hand--is different.

Just so. Take, for instance, a decision on what kind of milkshake to order. You have before you the menu of options at ice cream shop, you factor in what others have said about the quality of various flavors there, what you have ordered previously at other places, and your personal tastes. You order chocolate.

I read off the same menu board, factor in what others have said and done, what I have ordered before, my personal tastes--just the same process as you. I order strawberry. The same process, the same set of factors taken into consideration. One thing is different, and this leads to a different conclusion.

Change up the scenario just a bit. It's thirty years earlier, and you are at the same location, only then it was called a soda fountain. You move through the same decision-making process. Obviously, some of the factors are different: a different era might mean the quality of the ice cream (or other ingredients) is different, and so the reputation surrounding various flavors as an input factor is different. So too are the friends whose opinions you take into consideration. And you--are you the same or a different person?

You are different. You may well end up making a similar choice--chocolate--but the experiences you have over those thirty years make you a different person.

Now, move the whole conversation over to a subject of a different depth of import, and as a Christian making moral and ethical decisions with the Bible as our primary guide. As a Wesleyan, I will add, three other factors that weigh in early Church Tradition, logic or reasoning, and the testimony of personal (and contemporary community) experience. These four, Scripture, Tradition, reason and experience, are the factors that guide us in making moral and ethical decisions.

Suppose that you--or even a whole group of people in the same church denomination--return to a decision that you-all made thirty years ago. You are determined to retrace the decision-making process, and use that prior decision as a guide: you will return to study the same set of Scriptures; you return to seek the wisdom of the same Church Fathers; you follow the same logic and reasoning processes; and you give weight in the same way to experience.

And you reach a different conclusion. What has changed? Not the Scriptures. You might be focusing on a broader set of Scriptures or give higher priority to some texts over others. That would be a change. But on the whole, you value the Bible with the same conviction and seek the God's wisdom via Scripture in the same way. Similarly, the voice of Church Tradition has not changed. Though you are certainly reading the Bible and "hearing" the Church Fathers differently for some reason.

Ah reason: but, no, you have determined to follow the same mental processes. That has not changed, though the outcome certainly has. The answer, obviously, is experience. Over thirty years, your experiences (individually and collectively) have added to insight.

Just the one factor. Of course, as we've noted, that simple change (additional experience) also floods over to other factors. Experience does affect how you read the Bible, how you receive the wisdom of Tradition, how you give weight to certain factors in reasoning processes.

Fundamentalist Bibliolatry

In an interview for the fiftieth anniversary issue of Christianity Today magazine some handful of years ago, theologian John Stott made a surprising statement.  Surprising, that is, to the interviewer and perhaps to many fundamentalists reading the article.  Stott was asked to define who evangelicals are.  His response focused on the centrality of Jesus Christ, that evangelicals may be defined as deriving authority for faith and practice from the God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.

     The interviewer wondered if Stott had not forgotten to mention the Bible, believing that key for evangelicals is the place of the Bible.  But Stott put forward a gentle correction, saying that he wanted “to shift conviction from a book, if you like, to a person.”

      The fundamentalists within the evangelical camp have had this equation reversed for far too long. There is indeed a norming authority of Scripture in the lives of evangelical Christians.  However, Stott says, the Bible has authority “because Christ has endorsed its authority.”  The Scriptures “main function is to witness to Christ.”

      While we can affirm that the inspired Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the unique and normative source for Christian faith and practice, we ought also to remember that our faith is in a person.  Faith—we trust ourselves to the care of a person.

       It is a kind of creeping fundamentalism to claim faith in an object, even one so revered as the Bible.  It is revered, regarded as holy, precisely because it reveals to us a holy person. It is a means of grace.  However, this mediating function does not, cannot, work its work without the ongoing activity of the person of the Holy Spirit.

      Unmediated, Scripture becomes a blank screen upon which we can too easily impose our own ideas, exert our own wills, making claims that are thin on truth.  It is the reverse of letting Scripture interpret us, this bringing a pre-set agenda on how to read the Bible.  It is the opposite of humility before God, to interpret Scripture through the lens of a creedal statement.

     By this mindset have some created an idolatry of the Bible—call it bibliolatry—with their declaring as central to faith concepts of inerrancy and infallibility. 

       The Bible is a living document, though not a person.  The Bible witnesses to a person, God in Christ.  The Bible is a living document when the Spirit of the living God continues to reveal to us God in Christ through its pages, to impress upon our hearts its truths.

        When we replace a transforming encounter and walk with God (the underpinnings of salvation) with a doctrinal statement or creed, however piously constructed, we have turned from God and toward ourselves.  Thus, idolatry.

      It is a movement away from this fundamentalist kind of construction that Stott wanted to initiate in his conversations.  We ought to be moving toward a perspective of having faith in a person.

          The adaptability and applicability of faith, doctrine statements included, is a sign of its life—faith and faith creeds too can be said to be living precisely because they continue to be relevant, to apply to people in ever-changing circumstances.

            This is part of the wonder of God: Who, unchanging in character—Holy and Person, Loving and Just—is eternally adaptable in providing the means of grace that meet us where we are, when we are.

          We are not first and foremost creedal people in the sense that our faith is in a creed; we do not trust ourselves in a list of doctrinal statements.  We are a people of a living faith.  It is precisely when a systematic theology replaces the living God in our esteem and worship that we are in danger of shifting from faith in God to faith in an object.

            So I will venture to say this careful: we do not believe in the Bible, we believe in the One the Bible reveals.

(I wrote the preceding essay a few years ago. The following is a Facebook blog post inspired by a book I began to read recently, very much on the same theme, and which occasioned the posting of the older essay here.) 

When it comes to the primary nature and role of the Bible, there are major differences between fundamentalists and Wesleyans.

Fundamentalists tend to view Scripture as a body of unquestionable divinely given information that must be accepted as something of a rule book for safe Christian living. The Bible itself, with its comprehensive and rationally accessible inerrant divine truths or propositions, is the depository and residence of inspiration. The Bible and its truths are the primary objects of attention.

For John Wesley, for whom the Scriptures are truly the Word of God, the primary role of Scripture resides not in the text as divine information but in the Holy Spirit's use of it for a transforming encounter with the risen Christ, the true Word of God. The primary purpose of the Bible is to glorify God and form the people in the image of Christ. Christ, as the encountered Redeemer, not the Bible, is of primary interest and importance.

The Bible is the means the Holy Spirit uses for inner regeneration and the sanctified life. Its focus is not on issuing propositional truths about God and the world. Formation, not information, is its defining goal. Wesleyans accordingly believe that the authority of Scripture is centered on its Spirit-inspired ability to nurture Jesus' disciples in loving relationships with God and neighbor. The writers of the Bible tell us how to live in these right relationships and do not attempt to set forth a vast body of knowledge--historical and scientific--that Christians must unquestionably accept.

[from "Square Peg: Why Wesleyans Aren't Fundamentalists"]

Re-Atonement: the start of a re-telling of the human story

My current thoughts on theology have danced around the topic of the atonement.  They were sparked by an article in Christianity Today that bemoaned the loss of the centrality of a particular atonement theory in modern evangelical circles.

     The author was describing a trend away from this centrality in tones that he intended as a clarion call to repentance, a return to orthodoxy.  But my own response was the opposite.  I was pleased to note that so many are finding it less than necessary to live with the now-standard notions of atonement.

     And so my thinking goes: I believe in the essence of what lies behind the stories of atonement, but not the specific theories of atonement (blood payment, or satisfaction, or ransom).  These stories made sense in their time, and in context of the biblical stories are entirely consistent.

     But I cannot hold them close to me any longer.  They simply do not make sense.  They do not resonate with me.  I cannot envision a God who would require anything of the sort (neither the sacrifice of animals or of Jesus on the cross) in order to bring humankind into a salvific relationship with God.  There is obvious benefit to us in making sacrifice, but no objective change in what God is able to do...although given my own tendency to thinking in free-will terms, God is self-limiting, and will not/can not override our wanting and acting. 

  Still, all of that refers mostly to OT sacrifices and atonement stories.  The NT atonement references are conscious reinterpretations of the OT, and brilliant.  But again, only within that closed system of thinking do they still make sense. 

    The OT is rife with a religious perspective that we do not fully share—though we readily use its terminology.   The NT appropriates this world view; but the imagery is one step removed from its literalness (see the NT book of Hebrews). 

      To wit: the OT poses the problem of satisfying a divine demand for blood, though this rationale is not explained beyond the reference to the natural blood-life connection.  The NT moves one step beyond the allowable animal substitute, and presents an interpretation of Jesus on the Cross as a new, fuller, better, and now once-for-all complete substitute sacrifice.

     No more animal blood, the act is complete; yet the imagery is itself unexplained, built as it is upon a more literal sacrifice of the past.

And now, while we use the words, notably of salvation by His Blood, this is all upon a system of sacrifices we neither fully understand nor could possibly accept.  What’s more, the ancient OT world had a concept of God very different:  why, for example, does/did animal sacrifice “work”?  Was it ever objectively effective?  Or, as I suspect of our own salvation experiences, was this animal sacrifice also subjectively effective—it worked in a way because of the attitude, etc., of the worshiper?

     This after all is the charge of works righteousness, that somehow contrition brings holiness.  But then if it “works”—if the sacrifice is propitiatory—because the subjective attitude is present and right (and there is great evidence that the attitude was more important than the act) then is there really an objective act involved?  That is, does anything outside of ourselves (i.e., God’s attitude or acceptance or whatever) change?

But maybe there is no (objective, transcendent) record book to be wiped clean.  Maybe there is no judge, prosecuting attorney, defense attorney, etc.—all those roles imagined being played in the cosmic drama of one of the atonement theories.  And maybe there is no jailer, no slave owner, no one from whom we need rescue or monetary debt redemption. 

     Maybe all of the pictures of the atonement the Bible allows us to draw are metaphors after all.  Maybe they are mere attempts to illustrate our (ancient ancestral) perspectives, and each carries deep scars of temporal connections.

     What then are we to do, what to say, how to think?  So what does atonement mean? And how is it "accomplished"?  How can we speak of atonement in terms that make sense—that honestly and faithfully represent our spiritual experiences yet do not wholly rely upon a system of sacrifice that does not represent our physical experiences nor a concept of God that no longer makes sense?

I suggest a new beginning story.  The traditional foundational picture is a story of an ideal life marred by sin.  This is how primeval humankind made sense of what they saw and felt: they saw imperfect life, but felt like it ought to be better.  So they imagined that it had been, and then the very real and obviously true tendency of humanity to do wrong destroyed that perfection.  And then the necessity to get back to full relationship with God led to actions on our part, the sacrifices.

     But what if the Genesis story were reinterpreted, re-read?  The initiating observations are the same: we saw an imperfect life, and the innate tendency (an inclination common to all of us, from birth) to act in ways that are destructive (but which are at root attempts at self-protection, self-care).  All of this remains the same from our subjective observations of how life is—and so becomes part of the new Genesis myth of how things were "in the beginning."

     Remember that a central component of creation is ordering from chaos.  And so my re-read Genesis story continues: into the chaos of this life as we know it enters God.  Slowly, gradually, as we come to know more fully who God is, and come to be changed more completely by the presence of God who is among us, we discover and develop that salvific relationship.  (I should say also that my theology now defines salvation entirely in terms of relationship.)

     This metaphor myth makes sense on two levels, macro and micro; also on levels of the individual and the community.  We may speak of creation as bringing order from chaos in the natural world.  And we can point to other stories of re-creation, like with Noah and the return from exile.

     But then we need to acknowledge that we, too, are part of the natural world.  God’s coming into our lives as a creative force is what revelation and salvation signify.  Religion becomes a way of making sense, and finding meaning, a way of living together as humans and in relation with the world in peace/harmony—this is good.

The re-atonement story is not just where we have come from.  

It is where we are going.

So instead of a picture of the ideal that has been corrupted, it is a picture of the natural world—which feels incomplete and chaotic—that is transformed into the ideal, a vision we all long for and wish for.  This story then is the foundation for what atonement is: God making the first step (prevenient grace), reaching out to us and enabling us to respond (reversing total depravity), and transforming us from our inclination toward evil so that our very desires resonate with God's: this life-giving grace is a continuing, sanctifying grace.

     This approach also addresses the problem of what has been called “inherited depravity.”  Which is to pose the question that arises when one literalizes the Genesis story: how is it that every human being born since has this natural tendency toward the selfish and corrupt and the wrong?  Inherited depravity as a theory answers that since Adam’s sin all are sinners, as if there was some change in the moral genetics.

     But removing the literalness of the story, and then starting at a different point than the ideal Garden of Eden scene, allows us to imagine a different answer.  How is it that we’re inclined toward chaos?  Because chaos is where we are from, and order and Shalom is where we want to go. We are not fallen, but we are feeling the chaos as part of our nature.

Side-Door Theological Dictionary: “Salvation”: So what?

Side-Door Theological Dictionary: “Salvation”: So what?

The implications of describing salvation in this way.

In an earlier post, I described salvation as awareness of God’s presence, and participation in God’s purposes. In this post, I will begin to flesh out that definition, first by describing some of the implications of describing salvation in this way.

RE:Atonement Theories
One of the chief implications of a side-door definition of salvation is that the "transactional character" of the multiple and sometimes contradictory atonement theories fades in importance. In choosing a word like "transactional" to describe most atonement theories (and thus most other approaches to describing salvation), I mean to say that the focus is often on the "how" of salvation in two ways:

• How did Jesus make atonement? What happened? The atonement theories usually point to some kind of "transaction": paying a penalty, rescuing or ransoming, etc., that describe a change from before Jesus did something, to after.
• How do I get saved? What must I do? The approaches to salvation (evangelism, in particular) emphasize a kind of "transaction": admit, believe, confess, repent, etc., that describe a change from before you do something, to after.

In the first instance, the "transaction" is an effort to describe an objective change in the universe--before and after crucifixion & resurrection. Note that the atonement theories are all post-biblical constructs that attempt to make sense out of the reality that in the person of Jesus Christ, both God and God's realm were made known. But each of the most prominent atonement theories (and I'm looking especially at you, penal substitution theory) build upon metaphors that in literalness-obsessed modernity have descended into absurdity.

In the second instance, the "transaction" is largely a product of revivalism cum evangelism, that reflects efforts to describe an objective change in the person--before and after a prayer of "conversion". Note that the conversion is admittedly a single step in a larger and longer process, and yet the insistence is upon that moment, an instantaneous objective change.

I realize that both of these descriptions and implicit critiques are facile in some regard, and surely incomplete. Yet they must serve here as touch points and comparison markers.

Benefits of side-door definition
By eliding the problem of transaction thinking (and we haven't even gotten into 'magical thinking' yet!), I hope to demonstrate that the side-door definition of salvation puts the emphasis where it belongs: on the reality of God and God's realm. Without being exhaustive, the following arenas point to fruitful benefits of thinking in terms of the side-door definition of salvation:

Kingdom-friendly

The emphasis rides along with a major thrust of the Gospels, that of the announcement of the Kingdom (the realm) of God, the slow growing awareness and understanding and nascent participation in the matter's of God's realm.

Consistent with biblical imagery
Consider significant symbols of the Gospels, like "light & darkness" and how this suggests a dawning awareness. Walk in the light...

Discipleship...
Inherent in the second aspect of the side-door definition is a continuing participation in God's purposes as an essential component of what it means to be saved. Growth and discipleship are grounded in this thinking.

Relatable to other faith traditions
While not a game-breaker, the fact that the side-door definition is largely in neutral and non-technical language makes this approach more amenable to communicating with people with different religious vocabularies.

I hope to continue to build on these concepts. Your participation is solicited and valued.

Your People Need Fresh Bread

Here is an extended quote relevant to discussions about the Bible, a “closed canon” and the concept of continuing (or progressive) revelation subsequent to the end of the “biblical era,” and perhaps also how we approach the issue of biblical hermeneutics.

The book is The Parables: Jewish Tradition and Christian Interpretation, by Brad H. Young. 

My hope is that we'll gain an even deeper appreciation for the need to continually be open to God the Holy Spirit in our Bible reading, study, interpretation and application.

 

“In another rabbinic parable dealing with the theme of stewardship, the relation between the written and oral Torah is debated. In the eyes of some, the written word should be sufficient for Jewish faith and practice without consulting the oral teachings of Mishnah. The purpose of Mishnah however, is to refine the deeper meaning of the written Torah as it explores the mysteries of everyday living.

“The concept of stewardship is portrayed [in this parable] in the simple pictures from home life. The process of using wheat to bake bread from flour and using flax to make a tablecloth illustrates the way that Mishnah is used for a proper interpretation of the Bible. The Bible is given as a trust from God. Employing Mishnah to understand the written word properly is good stewardship of the sacred trust.

The King’s Wise and Foolish Servants

My son, were not both the Bible and Mishnah spoken by the mouth of the Almighty? If so, what is the relationship between them? The distinction between them may be illustrated by a parable. To what may the matter be compared? To a mortal king who had two servants whom he loved with utter love. To one he gave a measure of wheat and to the other he gave a measure of wheat; to one a bundle of flax and to the other a bundle of flax.

What did the wise one of them do? He took the flax and wove it into a tablecloth. He took the wheat and made it into fine flour by sifting the grain first and grinding it. Then he kneaded the dough and baked it, set the loaf upon the table, spread the tablecloth over it and kept it to await the coming of the king.

But the foolish one of the two did not do anything to it. After many days the king came into the house and said to the two servants: My sons, bring me what I gave you. One brought out the table with the loaf baked of fine flour on it, and the tablecloth spread over it.

The other brought out his wheat in a basket with the bundle of flax over the wheat grains. What a shame! What a disgrace! Need it be said which of the two servants was the more beloved? He of course who laid out the table with the loaf baked of fine flour upon it.

“The parable used the sharp contrast between two servants, one wise and the other foolish, to illustrate the relationship between Bible and Mishnah. The oral teachings of the sages are fundamental for the proper stewardship of biblical revelation. Both are words of God. The written word requires refinement through careful study and proper interpretation.

“This parable uses the common motif of the king who leaves his servants in charge of a trust while he is away. The images in the story are taken from the daily lives of the people, who were familiar with the hard work required to make bread from the raw ingredient of wheat or to make a tablecloth from flax. After hearing the parable, the routine of baking bread or making cloth would remind the audience of the way the Mishnah refines the deeper meaning of the Bible.”

 

Then there is this remembrance of a former Chief of Staff, the Commissioner who was second in command Internationally, of The Salvation Army. He was speaking to a group of Salvation Army Officers at our pastoral retreat on the subject of preaching, and the need for us to not take short cuts in our study and preparation: 

“Your people need fresh bread.”

Finally, I leave you with the words of one of my more favored hymns, this one by Mary Artemisia Lathbury (1841-1913) and Alexander Groves (1843-1909). In The Salvation Army Songbook (1987), it is #650. 

Break thou the bread of life, O Lord, to me,

as thou didst break the loaves beside the sea;

beyond the sacred page I seek thee, Lord;

my spirit pants for thee, O living Word!

Thou art the bread of life, O Lord, to me,

thy holy word the truth that saveth me!

Give me to eat and live with thee above;

teach me to love thy truth, for thou art love.

O send thy Spirit, Lord, now unto me,

that he may touch my eyes and make me see;

show me the truth concealed within thy word,

and in thy book revealed I see the Lord.

______________________

"Fresh Bread Promotion" graphic: metro.ca

Side-Door Theological Dictionary: "Salvation"

NOTE: I am beginning, with this post, to lay down the outlines for a larger project, the Side-Door Theological Dictionary. In this work, I aim to describe and define theological terms in a decidedly non-traditional way. Instead of working through the standard systematic texts and definitions, I aim to come at these concepts through the side door.

I strongly encourage posting your thoughts, remarks, objections, puzzles, etc. This will help me discern where I need to flesh out the sketch.

Side-Door Theological Dictionary: “Salvation”

Salvation is awareness of God’s presence, and participation in God’s purposes.

God is always present, always is (cf: I AM). The change for an individual, when entering into a “state of salvation,” is in their level of awareness of God’s presence. God is not more present at that moment, but the awareness that God is present has increased—this is what has changed.

This might also be best captured in the pictorial language of the Kingdom of God [or, God’s Realm]. That is, there is a rough equivalence between the phrases of entering a state of salvation and entering the kingdom of God.

For both, the operative ‘power’ effecting the change is grace. Grace itself is associated with God’s presence and power. So that we are able to speak of the means of grace in such a way that refers to 1) that which makes us aware of God’s presence; and 2) enables salvation.

We may speak properly of the turning toward God’s purposes—of aligning oneself with God’s purposes—as ‘being saved’ and also a synonym for repentance. Continuing along the way of God’s purposes is the way of salvation.

Anything, then, that creates or increases an awareness of God’s presence may be said to be a means of grace. The same is true for sustaining grace, those things that enable a continuing / abiding participation in God’s purposes.

Mid-Winter in Winnipeg

So it's the middle of January 2013, and the local Winnipeg paper remarked that it's quite possibly the coldest day of the year.

I knew it would come to this. I saw this coming:

It's Winnipeg, after all, also called WinterPeg or WindyPeg. 

But know this. After we moved here last June, and experienced many warm and lovely days in July and August, I purposely filed away those days for future use. Like for this month.

I remarked at the time to many people, "I am glad I moved here in the summertime, so that I will know in the middle of the most bitter cold days to come, that it will not always be so bad. I will not despair, because I have experienced warmer days."

Thinking Theologically

Of course, being a practicing theologian, I could not let it rest there. I immediately searched for the spiritual dimension.

My first thoughts ran to eschatology. The end of days, the Day of the Lord, the apocalypse. Happy thoughts, actually, because I lean post-millennial. I keep a measure of irrational and irresistible hope in my pocket that the future will be better than today.

Here's the thing. In the deepest, darkest, most depressing days I have, I try to remember that I have once (and maybe even once in a great while) experienced something better.

That something better comes via a personal experience of God in Christ, in whom all things will be made new.  It may be bleak now, but I know better.