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N.T. Wright & Pete Enns Agree: Adam is Israel in Exile!

February 3, 2012 in (Series) Video to Ponder, Books, Evolution, N. T. Wright with 15 Comments

If you haven’t read my review of Pete Enns’ The Evolution of Adam, you might check that out first and then come back here.  In this video, N.T. Wright states the same thing that Pete Enns argues: Israel’s being taken away in Exile is a recapitulation of Adam being cast out of the Garden.  For a fuller treatment of this, see this Biologos article. I would venture to say that N.T. Wright would lean a bit more toward the text being originally about humanity in general than Pete Enns would, but either way they agree on how the text functioned leading up to the time of Jesus.

What do you think?  Might Pete Enns and Tom Wright be on to something here?

Evolving With Enns: Reflections on “The Evolution of Adam”

February 2, 2012 in Books, Evangelism, Evolution, Theology with 5 Comments

*The following is part of the Evolution of Adam Blog Tour.

About four years ago, a glaring issue terrified me.  At this point in my spiritual journey, I had dealt with many theological assumptions bequeathed from popular Evangelicalism.  The grand shift of recognizing God’s love for the cosmos and God’s intention to join heaven and earth in renewed creation started a chain reaction.  Several significant changes can be traced back to this fresh realization in college.  With all of the paradigms shifts up to this moment of fear and trepidation, I feared I now was stepping into sacrilegious territory: an openness to biological evolution.

Believe it or not, at that time I was fairly immersed in the emerging church dialogue, but had never read Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christian trilogy.  When the main character was scripted as a science teacher who embraced both evolution and Jesus, my worldview felt like it was crumbling.  It didn’t help that as I struggled with these questions in the subsequent months that I was accused of being an atheistic youth pastor by friends.  But now I digress.

I wrestled with God, dialogued with others, and found myself in want for helpful resources.  Some books were written with people like me in mind, but many of these didn’t quite give me the answers I wanted.  Each moved me closer and closer to understanding how to handle biblical authority and modern science with integrity.  Then, resources like Biologos.org came along and I started to move beyond superficial answers such as “Genesis 1 is a poem,” etc.

I also discovered that other prominent evangelical leaders have an open posture toward evolution, such as – Billy Graham, Timothy Keller, Greg Boyd, N.T. Wright, C.S. Lewis, and John Stott – and my fear of sacrilege subsided. Continue Reading…

Reflecting on Jesus and His Death

January 19, 2012 in Books, Guest Contributors with 8 Comments

*The following is a guest book review by Lawrence Gracia.  Kurt does not necessarily endorse all of its content. Enjoy!

It is quite fascinating that among the thousands of ignominious crucifixions performed by the Romans within the first-century, either side of Jesus of Nazareth, that his and his alone, set forward a chain of events that would go on to forever alter history. That within decades, Jesus’ fate on the “dreaded wood” as they called it began to be interpreted as everything from a cosmic sacrifice for sins to that of God’s great act of faithfulness to the Abrahamic covenant begs for the historian and theologian alike to make sense of the matter. Especially, as to exactly how and on what terms Jesus himself may have understood his possible demise. It is this great historical question that Scot McKnight’s Jesus and His Death: Historiography, the Death of Jesus and Atonement Theory seeks to answer. McKnight asks:

Did Jesus think he would die prematurely? If so, what point in his life did that occur to him? from the outset? Following the death of John the Baptist? After he was opposed by the leaders? Or, only after he entered Jerusalem that last week? Furthermore, did Jesus think about his death in saving terms? Did he think it was of more than martyrological value or not? And if not, what are we to make of the continued witness of the church to the atoning value of his death?

Of course, to answer such questions in a postmodern world McKnight must face the charge that the modernist historical quest of a century ago is said to be a historian’s power play that is “all rhetoric, all discourse, all language, and in effect all autobiography.” Continue Reading…

Reflections on “Against Calvinism”

December 21, 2011 in Books, Guest Contributors with 4 Comments

*The following is a book review written by Lawrence Garcia.

I know what you are thinking: “Not another book on Calvinism?”—yes, yes it is. However, before you assume that Roger Olson’s Against Calvinism is merely an attempt at opening up old wounds that will set theological progress back five centuries the answer is likewise a resounding “no.” No, precisely because the book is aimed at a particular brand of Calvinism that is gaining potency in our own generation as it sweeps up young susceptible minds throughout North America. This movement has been christened by some as the “Young, Restless, Reformed” or the “new Calvinism;” a reaction against the somewhat theological blasé form of Christianity that characterizes much of today’s western church. Olson remarks:

I will argue throughout the book that high Calvinism is not the best way of interpreting Scripture. It is one possible interpretation of isolated texts, but in light of the whole witness of Scripture it is not viable. Furthermore, I will argue that high Calvinism stands in tension with the ancient faith of the Christian church and much of the heritage of evangelical faith.

Nevertheless, before embarking on his quest to challenge the new Calvinism Olson first takes the time to explicate that he fully understands, without caricature, the other side’s position. A principle often passed over when apologetics advocate, and at the same time, defend their theological positions. So a large portion of the book is Olson’s re-articulation, not only high/new Calvinism’s position (a Calvinist will have to judge here whether or not Olson is successful), but also the history of Calvinism’s famed system of soteriology known as TULIP—an acronym for “total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints”—derived from the Synod of Dort in 1618-19. The Synod of Dort was a gathering of Calvinist theologians, scholars, and pastors responding to the “Remonstrance,” or the protest against aspects of Calvinism by followers of Arminius. With such helpful facts, one learns, and perhaps New Calvinists do as well, that “surprisingly it is not tied to precisely or exactly to what Calvin happened to teach, although it is historically and theologically indebted to Calvin.” Continue Reading…

Jesus Have I Loved, But Paul?

December 17, 2011 in Books, Guest Contributors, Theology with 9 Comments

*The following is a book review written by Lawrence Garcia.

Lawrence is the Senior Teaching-Pastor of Academia Church in Goodyear, Arizona. He is a pastor devoted to the educational growth of his congregants, and the raising up of a new generation of disciples, who will think, tell, and live out the Christian story. Lawrence is currently attending Liberty University.

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Momentary confession, Jesus on the pages of the Gospels—the champion for the poor and marginalized, the healer of the diseased, the denouncer of oppressive structures, and the reconstituter of communities—“Have I loved.” “But Paul?”—the author of draconian household codes, impossible ethical standards, and authorial affirming dogma—has often left me living out a type of Christianity that oscillates between Jesus’ baptism and Damascus road. It is precisely such a dilemma that J.R. Daniel Kirk’s latest book Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul?: A Narrative Approach to the Problem of Pauline Christianity sets out to solve through a narrative re-reading of the Pauline corpus. Kirk states, “Such a positioning of Paul within the larger narrative sweep of Israel’s history… frames the invitation to rediscover the apostle on the following pages (4).”

Kirk begins this narrative rediscovery of Paul with God himself as understood not in the abstract categories of omni-this or omni-that, but “as someone who is at work within and even bound to the story of Israel.” In other words, before we can demonstrate that Paul is in continuity with Jesus’ ministry we must first ground them within the story they both understood themselves to be playing a part. This methodology is somewhat characteristic of how the rest of the chapters are constructed: (1) the story of Israel’s God and his people, (2) the story of Jesus as it relates to this foundational narrative, and (3) how Paul’s life and teaching fit neatly within the two. Albeit in a more concise manner, this is asserted by Kirk:

For now the important takeaway is that Jesus as we meet him on the Gospels is not living out a self-contained story. He is acting out a final, climactic scene in the ongoing drama of Israel that stretches back to creation and comes to its promised resolution with his death and resurrection. And we see the same claim with Paul (15).

It is when we place the various topics that Kirk brings to the table to be examined within this narrative framework—“Christianity as Community,” “Judgment and inclusion,” and “Liberty and Justice for All,” just to name a few—that Paul, time and again, is proven to be in harmony with Jesus as portrayed in the Gospel stories. Continue Reading…

25 Books Every Christian Should Read (and a book giveaway!)

December 16, 2011 in Books with 7 Comments

The following is a conversation part of the Patheos Book Club for 25 Books Every Christian Should Read.  To interact more, click this link.

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My spiritual journey continues to be informed by people like Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, and more recently – Jan Johnson.  These folks are part of a wonderful organization called Renovare, which focuses on equipping followers of Jesus to become more like their Messiah.  My personal reflections on the issue of inward transformation and how such expresses itself outwardly, are written in an article called “I’m Done With Living Like a Christian.”  There, you will get a glimpse into why I appreciate the Renovare approach to spirituality.  Bottom line: know Jesus more.

Recently, I was sent a book to explore and reflect upon called 25 Books Every Christian Should Read.  My initial thought was that I wondered about the criteria for such a list, wondering if this list was a bit restrictive.  But, as I read the rationale for selecting these books (which represent the broad gamut of Christian writings from St. Athanasius to Henri Nouwen), I became convinced that the Renovare board was on to something.  They state:

This book is not the list of the best Christian books ever written or a list of the top twenty-five devotional books; it isn’t even the list of the top twenty-five classics, although we believe all of the books on the list are or will be considered classics of their respective genres.  the books we have chosen to include are, instead, the books that the board judged served as the best guides for living life with God.  Cumulatively, these books embody a rich treasure of wisdom and counsel for how to live the Christian life. (x)

With that as the criteria, here is the goal: “reading primarily for formation rather than for information” (xii).  This certainly is a challenge in a day when reading is focused on information intake and data overload.  This book, which is a guide for introducing readers to a lot of other books, will take discipline to get through.  In fact, the books is set up in chronological order, but the hope of the compilers is that readers will seek to read particular works that resonate with where they are in their faith journey at the time.  This book truly is a guide to point you in a direction and not a book to “charge” through in a short amount of time. Continue Reading…

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