From My Theological Journal IX

This is an excerpt from my final entry in a journal I kept last school year. If my posts seem scattered and my thoughts seem incohesive, perhaps this will explain why:

February 18, 2007

... While listening to the sermon, I had an interesting thought: “What would it look like to examine Jesus’ death and resurrection (and the implications for our lives) from numerous perspectives—forgiveness, mercy, justice, reconciliation, etc.?” I don’t like that theologians tend to create whole, thoroughly cohesive theologies, forgetting that the Bible doesn’t always present a thoroughly cohesive message. Perhaps the Bible can speak to us in contrasting, but equally valid and powerful ways about a single subject. Maybe the issue of God’s forgiveness can be drawn out into a very beautiful whole that is different from the beautiful whole theology of mercy. Obviously these ideas will have a great deal of overlap, but they each have different emphases because each of them holds something different as vitally important. Can I find a passage (or few passages) to draw on to develop a theology for each? Will the messages for each subject speak a different word? I believe so. It is something I am very interested in pursuing. We shall see.

From My Theological Journal VII

The following is another entry from an old journal I kept on my computer. This one is a little harsh, but there's no sense in watering it down now:

December 30, 2006

Sometimes I feel like this is the message that Christians give out to the world:

“For Christians so hated the world that they took God’s only Son so that only they might believe in him, and so that the world would perish and that only they would have eternal life.”

Yeah, I know this is pretty pessimistic, but too often I feel that it’s the attitude Christians are perceived to have. There is certainly a lofty sense of exclusivity that many Christians have and they couple that with a super-pious condemnation of everything they see as unclean, creating a deadly combination. And that combination is deadly for Christianity. We are killing the relevance of our faith, our ability to speak faithfully about our God, and our ability to bring him to the world that he so loves. Our piety and judgment, though usually well intended, are out of control—they have become virtuous in and of themselves and are in danger of being divorced from any connection with God. If we were truly connected with God, we would not be so standoffish and condemning—instead, we would exhibit the radically forgiving and accepting love of Jesus Christ. And that is in no way wishy-washy. It is acting as God would have us do. Our mark as believers is our love. But who on the outside would ever construe our hateful, self-righteous behavior as love?

From My Theological Journal VI

Once again, here is an entry from the journal that has been trapped in the confines of my hard drive for the last year. This one is probably heretical--maybe I should have kept it on my computer:

November 9, 2006

One thing that troubles me about my own theological thoughts is the way I think about Jesus. As long as I can remember, “Jesus” has bothered me. Not his life or atonement or anything like that—it has just bothered me that people talk about him and to him so much. I’ve always been more comfortable praying to “God” and not Jesus. It makes me uncomfortable when people make reference to Jesus in their everyday speech. I understand that in Christian theology, Jesus plays an important role—he is God. He is the way and the truth and the life, but why just him? More recently, this has been what has troubled me. There are so many people who do not know Jesus and will never know Jesus, but who earnestly seek God through their own cultures and religions. Is their sincerity and piety worthless? Perhaps what is important is recognizing our need for God (which is where Jesus comes in), and regardless of culture it is this recognition (and the resulting lifestyle change) that God is interested in. I am just uncomfortable with Jesus.

Another thing that has been troubling to me is the idea that Jesus is God. I essentially reject the trinity as a definition for God. Why must only those three be “God”—why not the other manifestations of God throughout the Bible? Also, the definition of God is too neatly defined. How do we know who begot whom and what substance each has? The Bible is not that explicit about any of it. And what good does the idea of the trinity do, anyway? Historically, it was used to fend off heresy, but I’m not sure that coming up with a human definition of God is a very good idea…. This was verified to me when my theology professor admitted that the idea of the trinity is essentially a hedge around the truth about God, and it is not the truth itself. To bring this back to Jesus, my professor in Johannine Writings has reaffirmed my thinking by showing us that Jesus is not necessarily understood as God anywhere in Johannine literature (or anywhere else in the New Testament). Yes, Jesus was divine, but his exact metaphysical relation to the Father is not laid out. What is his nature? How is he human and divine? The Bible doesn’t say, and early Christians didn’t know. Exactly how it works is not clear, so it should be okay if it is unclear for me….

But I am still left with the difficulty I have with Jesus. I don’t know what I think, but I know that I tend to avoid him, except when it comes to atonement. And that is unfair—I can’t pick and choose when I want Jesus and when I don’t. I just don’t know what to think. I am interested to see what Bonhoeffer does with Jesus (especially in the LLP). It makes me uncomfortable that Barth and Bonhoeffer are so Christologically focused, but maybe they can show me how to reconcile Jesus, God, and the real world I live in.

From My Theological Journal V

Here's another entry from the journal that I kept last year:

November 6, 2006

Earlier today I picked up a Bible and flipped open to 1 Corinthians 7:11 (a passage that Kierkegaard mistakenly refers to in his notes on Problema II in Fear and Trembling). It is in the section discussing divorce—that couples shouldn’t divorce, but if they do they should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to one another. And it got me thinking about how the church handles situations like divorce. Many times I’ve heard of pastors not being allowed to minister at certain churches because they were divorced or remarried, and I always find that ridiculous. Just because the pastor has gotten a divorce and has remarried (which Paul says not to do), that doesn’t mean that he is unfit for service. Perhaps it is fair to call that act wrong, but once it is done it is done. What does the church expect him to do? Divorce his new wife, too? Of course not. Perhaps he made a mistake in getting divorce or in getting remarried, but that does not disqualify him from service any more than the fact that at some point in his life he has lied.

Here’s the point that I’m getting at—too often we (the church) dwell on past sins and talk all about what we should have done, instead of dealing with the situation at hand and moving forward. We need to deal with the present reality, not past possibilities. Even Paul acknowledges this in the section on divorce. He gives the command that a wife should not separate from her husband, but in the next verse he deals with the reality of divorce saying, “But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband.” I believe Paul would also have taken the next step—the woman should not remarry, but if she does she should strengthen that marriage and make it holy and pleasing to God.

The truth is there are a lot of things that we shouldn’t do but that we, in our infinite wisdom, go ahead and do anyway. Why? Because we’re stupid and sinful. But once we have made the mistake, there often is no going back, so we should move on and work with the situation at hand. It does no one any good to sit around and point out each others’ past errors at length (of course some accountability is both humbling and needed)—we need to work with the present reality. Sure, perhaps the pastor should not have been divorced and remarried, but if he is called by God to minister, let him minister. I have lied and cheated and stolen and hated and lusted—and that makes me a sinner—but that does not disqualify me from the service of God. Sin is a reality that we must deal with. We can’t engage the world if all we can do is talk about how people should have made better choices, letting them know what a tragedy their life is. Neither we nor they can change what they’ve done, so let’s talk about the future! Sure, we must understand the past, but dwelling on it does not promote growth or healing. Let’s move on, let bygones be bygones because that is exactly what God has done for us (see Psalm 103).

From My Theological Journal IV

This is an entry in a journal I kept during the fall of my senior year in college. However incomplete and deficient it may be, hopefully it is at least interesting:

Early morning November 4, 2006

I was just reading an article on theooze.com about a pastor who invited his neighbors to church on Easter. Many of them came and as he stood to preach he realized what an odd feeling it was to preach to the people with whom he hung out with on a regular basis in a normal, egalitarian way. He made a few comments about how the time he spends with them in the neighborhood is just as important as having them come to church. This made me start thinking about my experiences bringing my friends to church. And I was shocked by the first thing that popped into my head—I was always embarrassed to have them come.

It’s not that I was embarrassed of my faith or of the fact that I went to church, but the experience was so awkward. Because it was always new to them I was always explaining things to them and letting them know what they should expect and what to do in different circumstances. That is to be expected, but there was more than that…. The problem was that I was always embarrassed about something. Inevitably someone would say something or do something that I would feel the need to apologize for or explain away. The preacher would always make some off-color comment or the worship team would play bad songs or the one person that I did not want my friend to have meet would be waiting for me in the parking lot. And it’s not just that one thing went wrong—it was always a disaster of a Sunday. Sure, you say, it was Murphy’s Law in action. The problem is that I don’t think that it was a fluke. It wasn’t just that one Sunday that was terrible—most Sundays were terrible and would have been embarrassing if I had had a friend with me.

I guess what I’m saying is that for most of my life I’ve found church irrelevant and old fashioned. And it’s not like I went to a conservative, backwater church either—no, the churches I’ve attended have always been decently progressive. They always utilized technology, were up on recent trends, and did their best to be relevant and seeker-sensitive. My next thought is obviously influenced heavily by Bonhoeffer, but I’m starting to be afraid that it’s the truth. The reason church seemed irrelevant is because it was. The way that we conduct church (whether we realize it or not) is based on the assumption that most people are religious or would be religious given the chance. The liturgical church service that brings people together in a building where they are led in singing and are preached at first came into existence once Christianity became the status quo. It wasn’t until Christianity was common and even assumed that we had “church” as we now describe it. And it was a decent model for hundreds and hundreds of years—until sometime around the twentieth century.

As society became increasingly secular during the twentieth century, it became more acceptable not to attend church or be religious. It was in the 1970s with the seeker-sensitive movement that the church first began to realize that it was being detached from society. All of the sudden, the church had to pull itself together and pay attention to what the culture was saying and doing—all of the sudden, the church was forced to compete with the culture. Unfortunately, as society has been becoming more and more secular, the church has been straining to make the old model fit something it wasn’t made to fit. It is not the church’s fault that the current model isn’t working—it wasn’t designed for this.

The underlying assumption of the current church model is something similar to what Bonhoeffer calls the “religious a priori” of humanity—I’ll call it the Christian a priori. The current model functions best when it is built-in as a part of society. It works best when it doesn’t have to fight for people’s attention, when people attend because they are already Christians. The current model was not made for evangelism—why would a non-Christian show up at a gathering that is meant for and directed at Christians? It is intended to edify and to grow up Christians, and it functions best in this way.

The current church model is based on the Christian a priori because that is how Western society has been for hundreds of years. Everyone was Christian in the Christian society, but that no longer holds true. For many years now, society has been loosening its grip on the Christian a priori and is in the process of letting go altogether. Meanwhile the church is still functioning under the Christian a priori model where people come to church and meet with God there. Eventually, this model will fail completely. What is difficult, though, is that the church feels that abandoning the current model is a form of compromise—as if altering the model is giving in to the culture.

The truth is, however, that church has not always looked the way it does now. It did not always function under the Christian a priori. There was a day when individual churches were just small gatherings in homes. Church was personal. It didn’t compete with the culture to try to be relevant—it was relevant because it was an intimate part of people’s lives. It didn’t consist of a building and a worship team and senior pastor. Church was not a building or a time of gathering—church was the group of people itself. Church did not occur only at a specific time and place. The people themselves were the church—when they went to work, when they went shopping, when they were sleeping, when they were eating. The underlying assumption for the structure of the church was that the people of the church needed God and they needed each other—and church was how both needs were met. Church was relationships. The web of believers who shared their lives together were the church. It was all about sharing—sharing Christ, food, trials, excitement, pity, drinks, time. In this model, bringing someone to church is easy—it is just introducing someone to your friends and family. This model of church assumes nothing about anyone’s beliefs—it just acknowledges everyone’s needs.

From My Theological Journal III

Here is another entry from a journal I kept on my computer last year:

November 2, 2006

Right now I should be writing my paper for Johannine Writings, but I need a break. While I was in the bathroom, I had a thought (who knows how many great ideas throughout history have occurred in the bathroom?). I see a problem with the way contemporary Christian thought is proceeding. We are right in doing theology in the context of the church and for the sake of the church, but I’m not sure we are completely on target. We tend to focus on ecclesiology (which is good considering the contemporary church is in a state of crisis), but what I see an over-abundance of is ecclesiology supported by theology. Instead, it seems like we should be doing theology that results in ecclesiology. I know that the difference between the two is minute (and that perhaps there may be no difference at all), but I feel like we should be doing things differently.

After all, the contemporary church is great at defining itself in terms of being traditional, restorational, purpose-driven, missional, seeker-sensitive, organic, emerging, and countless other things, but we severely lack an understanding of who God is and especially of how God relates to our contemporary, post-modern, secular world. I have to wonder if we could come to a deep understanding of who God is and how he relates to us and then use that understanding as the basis for our ecclesiology. Instead of worrying so much about how to make the church relevant to society, I feel like we should come to a better understanding of how God relates to us (Christian and non-Christian alike). In the current emerging church movement, we seem to be trying to understand God in terms of our society (“What does a post-modern God look like?”). Doesn’t it make just as much (if not more) sense to try to understand our society in terms of God? To be honest, I have no idea what this looks like or how it could be done, but I have an inclination that focusing on God more than the methodology or circumstance is important….

* * * *

I just ran across a scrap of paper that I jotted two things down on a couple of weeks ago. They pertain to Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison, with which I am still becoming acquainted:

“Risk making faith/theology subject to no authority/guidelines: all within oneself”

“[His writings are] Encouraging because I realize that my uncertainty is not only acceptable, but perhaps good. I’ve been swamped down by the feeling of needing to heed to evangelical orthodoxy. Things are figured out for me … but what if I don’t agree?”

From My Theological Journal II

The following is the next entry from a journal I kept on my computer last year. Please keep in mind that these entries are questions and possibilities not conclusions:

Early morning October 30, 2006

Last Monday night I was up late completing a take-home test for Existentialism. Before I answered the final question on the test, I went into the chapel to think. I had to sort through Kierkegaard’s ideas in Fear and Trembling and try to apply them to real life Christianity. I was pacing around the chapel, talking out loud, frustrated because of my spastic thoughts. As I walked down the center aisle and neared the front, I was distracted by the altar. It was just a simple, blond table placed at the back of the small stage—and it was empty. I started thinking about the symbolism of that table, how in the days of the temple it was on the altar that animals were sacrificed to atone for our sins. It seemed funny to me that the altar had been transformed from a large, bloody stone structure to a simple table inside a chapel. But it makes sense theologically. The altar (like the cross) is there to remind us that our sins have been paid for already and are constantly being paid for. Jesus’ sacrifice was for all time. The altar and the cross are to remind us of Jesus’ enduring sacrifice, but they are free from a bloody victim (in the case of the protestant church) because he has been resurrected and is no longer dead. But then I had a horrible thought—what if it were just like the Emperor’s New Clothes? It is totally possible that some kid will stand up in the back row of the church and start laughing at us and point, saying, “The altar is empty! Don’t be silly! And there’s nothing on that cross at all!” What if everything we have been told by our preachers and teachers is a lie? What if they are just as deceived as the rest of us and there is nothing there? Perhaps we are all wrong. Perhaps we are seeing something where there is nothing. Perhaps, to our embarrassment, the emperor is naked.

From My Theological Journal I

During the first semester of my senior year at Pepperdine (last fall) I began recording some of my thoughts about God, church, etc. on my computer. Over the next while I will be posting those entries here:

Early morning October 17, 2006

Relativism. Somehow this thing, relativism, has become the enemy of the modern church. Our leaders see it as an evil, as evidence of the moral decline of society. It is what is wrong with our world, it is what has ruined it. Relativism is the cause of the evil that we see today—if only we could return to the days when everyone knew God as king and Jesus as savior. Except that what our leaders forget is that there never was such a time. Before relativism it was modernity. Before modernity it was enlightenment. Before that it was humanism and mysticism and superstition and paganism. There never was a perfect time, a golden age of Christianity. Relativism is not the evil that is bound to eat up all of Christianity—it is the contemporary culture within which we must make Christianity understandable.

In our increasingly relativistic society the absolutes which the church holds to are being laughed at and rejected and beaten down. People find silly the notion that some antiquated institution might hold the wholeness of truth, even if science and reason suggest otherwise. Why would someone join this silly antiquated church and be forced to say certain prayers, kneel a certain way, have absolutes shoved down their throat in a take-it-or-leave-it fashion, when she can just as easily go to Starbucks, give a small tip to the hard-working barista, have a good conversation, all while enjoying her tall half-caf caramel macchiato with fresh whipped cream? After all, Starbucks lends her status, a chance to be benevolent, a place to socialize, an interesting thought or two and something that she can’t get at most churches—a cup of gourmet coffee made just how she likes it.

The church has lost its relevance to our culture. It talks about morality and family values that are set in stone and any differing idea is heresy. It gives warm, empty welcomes followed by a hailstorm of brimstone and a firm warning against all the liberals. And above all, the church is sure to remind you that it is the truth. The church sees itself as the cure for relativism, but I can pretty well guarantee that a relativistic, post-modern culture is not going to be won over by a clunky institution declaring that it is absolutely right and absolutely better.

The church is faced with a dilemma—it can either hold onto dogma and a false sense of control while it dies off along with its few remaining members, or it can embrace honesty, humbly reexamining its identity, at the risk of being vulnerably authentic.

The problem with the current state of the church is that it has sacrificed honesty for the sake of a sense of control. With dogma and firmly placed absolutes, the church retains a vestige of the power it once possessed because at least it can still definitively and haughtily point out where others stumble. Dogma lends the church a sense of stability and even of self-righteousness because it knows with absolute certainty that it is holding firmly to the truth. But, sadly, it has ceased to be honest with itself and with the world. It has forgotten the virtues of reflection and self-evaluation. It has forgotten that it is made up not of angels but of sinners—it has forgotten that it has the potential to be wrong.

To be relevant to the culture, we must live in the culture and engage its questions. We must be willing to admit that, as humans, we cannot be absolutely certain that we are right. We must acknowledge that Christians do not have a superior degree of understanding or perception, but that we all have the same starting point. We are no better, no smarter, no more holy than anyone else. If we are willing to admit that we are fallible, we can finally begin to converse with a culture that can’t stand philosophical arrogance. And if we can begin the conversation, we can find ourselves again and we can find a new relevance.