Jesus and War

Last updated on: December 11, 2012 at 5:55 am By Scot McKnight

In a recent exchange between Tim Dalrymple (here, here, here) and Owen Strachan (here) we observed that each author had a different viewpoint but that each was operating within a similar framework for understanding how the Christian relates to the State. Briefly, Dalrymple wondered aloud if it was time for Christians to spend their public, political efforts on something other than fighting same-sex marriages and civil unions without surrendering his/their adherence to a biblical ethic, while Strachan struck the battle cry for all out culture war, saw Dalrymple as caving in on the battle the Christian must wage because of the biblical ethic. Both are committed to a kind of Niebhurian Type 5 approach to the Christian’s relationship to the State — namely, the Reformed strategy of influencing, politicking, agitating, and striving for a biblical ethic to reach as far as it can. God’s will is God’s will for everything.

These two do not differ, then, on what is right or what is wrong but on how best for the Christian to be Christian in the world and in the State and in culture. Dalrymple surprised me because the culture war approach seems inevitable for Type 5 thinkers, even if James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World proposed a meeker and milder and quieter form of the Reformed approach. I saw Dalrymple taking a more Hunter-ian approach while Strachan was taking the aggressive Moral Majority approach.

Why are so many Christians concerned with justifying war and not so much with reconciliation? What do you think of Stassen’s peacemaking initiatives? Will they work inside the walls of churches with “warring parties”?

Glen Stassen’s A Thicker Jesus might be seen as yet another approach. Yes, Stassen is a social ethicist, a Christian social ethicist, and that means he wants to translate — in true Niebuhrian form — Christian ethics into public ethics and provide a public rationale for a Christian ethic. But he’s more to the left while Dalrymple and Strachan are on the right.

Instead of engaging these three similar-but-different approaches to engaging public ethics, I want here simply to register an observation and then sketch how Stassen takes a “thicker-Jesus” approach from his teachings in the Sermon on the Mount into the discussion about war and just peacemaking. All three of these approaches are to be compared to a more ecclesial (Type 1 in Niebuhr, though his sketch is wildly imbalanced) approach, one in which the church is the focal energies of one’s “public” concerns, one in which political action is indirectly done through forming an alternative politic in the church, and one in which the culture war is 100% avoided. More directly, each of these approaches needs to state more clearly how the church functions in one’s political theology.

Stassen, I suspect, differs dramatically with Dalrymple and Strachan when it comes to war. Stassen thinks Jesus’ words mean business, they mean business for every followers, and they therefore mean business for the Christian’s views about the best kind of public politic. He doesn’t think Jesus’ teachings on peace and non-retaliation are too idealistic but they are kingdom ethics for a this-worldly existence. His approach seeks to show that Jesus is Lord over all (including the politics of war), realistic (it works), and transcends ideologies.

The bottom line is this: too many Christians want to win; they are not focused enough on peace, justice, love, wisdom, and reconciliation. They want the right way to win. The culture war approach is about winning. It’s a losing strategy.

He finds a politics of just peacemaking, rooted in his “thicker Jesus,” in ten practices, and you can see how he uses his strategy of “analogical contextualization” — through imaginative recreation of the teachings of Jesus — to work these out:

Initiatives
1. Support nonviolent direction act (Matt 5:38-43)
2. Take independent initiatives (5:38-43): these two combined reduce threats to both sides.
3. Use cooperative conflict resolution (5:21-26)
4. Acknowledge responsibility for conflict and injustice and seek repentance and forgiveness (7:1-5)

Justice (6:19-33)
5. Advance human rights, religious liberty, and democracy.
6. Support economic development that is sustainable and just.

Include enemies in the community of neighbors (5:38-43)
7. Work with emerging cooperative networks in the international system.
8. Strengthen the United Nations and international efforts for human rights.
9. Reduce offensive weapons and weapons trade (26:52)
10. Participate in grassroots peacemaking groups (as Jesus and the disciples formed groups, and so spread the gospel)

In #10 I believe Stassen gets to the heart of the approach of Jesus; he did not seek to win Rome or Judea’s leaders. Instead, he formed alternative kingdom communities, in which communities reconciliation, forgiveness, etc, were practiced, and offered to others an alternative, real kingdom approach to politics.

The Earliest Readings of Genesis 1

Last updated on: October 7, 2012 at 10:04 am By Scot McKnight

One of the areas we need to get sharper on is knowing how other Christians — ages ago — read Genesis 1. The singular problem of reading Genesis after Darwin is that he reshaped how we all read Genesis 1. That is, the pro-Darwin crowd sought either some kind of concord between science and Genesis 1 (for example, seeing aeons and aeons between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2) or concluded that Genesis 1 was ancient near eastern myth. The anti-Darwin crowd then said it’s history, science proves it, if science is done properly. Both sides, then, relearned how to read Genesis 1 in light of science. Darwin casts his shadow over most readings of Genesis 1 today.

What do you think of the idea that we are all influenced by Darwin in our reading of Genesis 1? Is the creationist, the intelligent design, the theistic evolutionist — is each of these a Darwin-shaped reading? How so? Is there a non-Darwinian reading of Genesis 1?

That’s simply too bad. For us. Because there are readings of Genesis that are not forcing the scientific questions. Andrew Louth, in his contribution to Reading Genesis After Darwin, examines how the Greek fathers — his focus is the great theologian, Basil of Caesarea — read Genesis 1. What he turns up is well worth serious consideration today.

To begin with, a number of theologians wrote interpretations of Genesis 1 in the early church. Theophilos of Antioch was deeply concerned with the rise of Gnosticism and so his focus was that God indeed created this very earth and God created this very earth out of nothing. It cannot be argued this was a widely held view in the Bible or in Judaism, for it is found in only two texts at the explicit level: 2 Macc 7:28 and Shepherd of Hermas Mandates 1. But Theophilos also emphasize that God prepared earth for humans — so humans are the highest order of creation. Creation leads to wonder and pondering the goodness and wisdom of God.

Basil. He did not read Genesis 1 allegorically and fought the allegorists; he read Genesis 1 literally: “I take all these as they are said” (47). Basil, however, did read some things allegorically but he thought Origen did too much allegory in Genesis 1 so he pushed against him. The focus of Genesis 1 ought to be on proclaiming God as creator and marveling at the goodness of creation.

Basil appealed here and there to contemporary science. He used Genesis 1, evidently, in the lens of Plato’s Timaeus. There was for him no opposition between Bible and science; science filled in the sketch of Genesis 1. The Bible is not a scientific account, he argues. He pondered time as “indivisible and without extension” so that Genesis 1:1: intersection of timelessness and time. Creation has inherent sympathy — it all hangs together. It’s a marvel of wisdom.

And humans are the center of creation. The human is cosmos in miniature. Humans have a role in creation analogous to God and humans are a “veritable shepherd of being” (52).

Top Ten Arguments against God: #10 (Jeff Cook)

Last updated on: October 3, 2012 at 6:04 am By Scot McKnight

This is the first in a series of ten brief posts by Jeff Cook, listing the top ten arguments against/for God.

Top 10 – Arguments Against God’s Existence #10-8 (Jeff Cook)

Socrates said, “Philosophy begins with wonder” and nearly all human beings at all times have looked at the world around them and, given its beauties, powers, and complexities, asked if what they saw was designed by a mind for a purpose.

I think it is vitally important to think hard about God. Whether or not you are a committed atheist, a believer in God, or something quite different—knowing why you come down where you do is a mark of a good character, of a thoughtful soul, of a person who cares about what reality is like.

I love Top 10 lists. Movies, sports stars, events—I will watch “The Top 10 Doily-Knitters of All Time” if its on. This post begins a set of two Top 10 lists: for and against God-belief. I write these lists as a theist, as one who believes in God (though that may change by the end), and the arguments below are the ones from which I feel the most pull and seem to capture the rationality for rejecting God belief best.

What I’d like to hear in response is: Are there good responses that I don’t include? Which of these arguments do you find the most compelling? Which one’s give you pause, or have actually swayed your thinking? Do I pitch the arguments well, or could you state these arguments in a more compelling way? And of course the real question—Did I get the list right?

One final word about “God.” For the purposes here let’s define “God” as the instigator of our world who is supremely good, powerful, and wise. The arguments below will give reasons for thinking “God” does not exist.

#10 – The Logical Problem of Pain

If God exists, God is supremely good and powerful.
A good being eliminates all meaningless pain so far as it can without surrendering a greater good.
There’s at least one meaningless pain that has been experienced that could have been prevented by a supremely powerful being without surrendering a greater good.

Therefore, there is no God.

What!? Number 10?! This is the most popular argument for rejecting God ever!

True. This is an emotionally compelling argument for sure, but philosophically it is too easy to sidestep in too many places. Peter Van Inwagen—a well-regarded expert in the field—reports that there are no professional philosopher who defend the logical problem of pain and evil any longer (See God and the Problem of Evil, 203), for there are too many possible outs: contemporary versions of the free will defense being the most popular (here).

One reason I think the logical problem of pain problematic is because the argument rests of the idea of “meaningless pain,” but how can you prove that each and every pain is meaningless? It maybe that in God’s future all our pains are seen in a new and soul-transforming light. We simply cannot “know”. It may be that brain cancer, tsunamis, and tragic accidents, in God’s future, will be seen as deeply meaningful events for each and every person. In fact, to call such tragedies “meaningless” now, may not only be short-sighted but may be deeply offensive to someone who, in looking back on their lives from God’s future, sees their pain as deeply valuable. Again, no one could possibly “know”; Premise 3 rests on a value judgment that cannot perceive all the necessary facts, and therefore the argument is not decisive in my mind.

JEFF COOK teaches philosophy at the University of Northern Colorado and is the author of Everything New: One Philosopher’s Search for a God Worth Believing in (Subversive 2012). He pastors Atlas Church in Greeley, Colorado. www.everythingnew.org

Jeff Cook: Jesus and Desire

Last updated on: September 1, 2012 at 6:43 am By Scot McKnight

Jeff Cook’s series on desire now moves on to Jesus.

“Blessed are the Very Smart for They Will See God.”

There’s a reason this beatitude strikes us poorly. It doesn’t seem to be how things work.

It’s not simply that those who are mentally slower or even wise in non-analytic spheres are some how lesser in God’s eyes. We reject this beatitude because God clearly doesn’t work this way.

Yet notice what this says about how we reason for Christianity. Do people need reasons for God belief? Yes, I think most do. Should we use every bit of good thinking we have for the sake of our world and the glory of Christ? Yes, of course. But when our apologetic becomes exclusively about the mind we cut up our audience and set to the side their passions, their will and their hearts (which I have argued here, here, and here).

This is a poor choice, and it is one Jesus did not make.

Jesus apologetic targeted the heart first. Notice just a sample from Matthew’s gospel of the ways Jesus spoke to the crowds who had not yet chosen to follow him.

The Sermon on the Mount

Some historians argue the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5-7) is the content of Jesus’ stump speech—a routinely delivered address (see Luke 6) painting the Kingdom of God and the invitation to come be a part of God’s fresh work. Notice how Jesus did not begin the address with an argument. He doesn’t start with Aquinas’s five ways or even a Pascalian Wager. Jesus began his most important teaching with an appeal to his audience’s passions.

The sermon starts with a pitch to two sets of people: those who look as though God has abandoned them (those empty of the Spirit, those easily abused, those mourning, and those hungering for their lives to be put right) and those who have done the hard work of God but seem to gain nothing from it (the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemaker, and the persecuted). This was Jesus’ target audience. These are the two types of people Jesus wanted to make up his movement—and to them he says: “heaven is here and its come for you, you will inherit the earth, you will be comforted, you will be filled, you will be shown mercy, you will see God, you will be called children of God, the kingdom of heaven is yours” (see more here).

This is not an argument in the common apologetic fashion. These are words targeted at longing. The Sermon on the Mount invited Jesus’ listeners to see reality as God does—and to want it. The move is perspectival. Jesus offered this audience a new way of seeing themselves and their world—to convert their thinking—but he gave them no argument for conversion. He simply put forward an appeal to their passions.

Jesus then blessed those who would take on this new perspective with a new identity: You are the light of the world, you are the salt of the earth, you are—a new Jerusalem—a city on hill that cannot be hidden where the Lord God is pleased to dwell. The beginning of the Sermon on the Mount is all about the desires of his early audience. Jesus showcased God’s work and priorities and in essence asked, “Don’t you want to be part of that?!”

The sermon ends in a similar fashion: there were two roads one that led to life, one to destruction; two trees, one that bore good fruit and one bad; two disciples, one invited in and one asked to leave; two homes (another temple image?) one that stood strong on the rock and one that fell with a great crash.

The implicit question was, “Which life do you want?” There is no argument here. Jesus offered two realities—and the choice was aimed at hearts.

Disciples

When Jesus said, “Come, follow me” to the man at the tax collector booth (Mt 9:9-13, Mk 2:13-17) there is no rational argument. There is simply an invitation: an invitation to rebel against Rome and forsake his duties, an invitation to cut off his stream of income, an invitation to start a new life. Why does Levi rise? Jesus had been living in Levi’s town. Levi—I assume—was a Levite who had left the priestly lineage of his family and had sold out to Rome. Now, sitting at his booth he is thinking about the life he truly desires. He had seen Jesus activities in Capernaum, and when Jesus offered a new beginning, Levi rose.

When Jesus sent out his disciples (Mt 10), he instructed his followers to proclaim that the Kingdom of heaven was breaking into our world, and then to heal the sick and drive out devils. Again, no argument here. The pitch is to the desires of those served. Do you want to be a part of God’s kingdom breaking into our world?

Evidence is given to John’s disciples (Mt 11): “Go report what you have seen…” Turning to the crowd Jesus said that “wisdom is proved right be her actions.” These are each appeals to empirical evidence. However, Jesus does not stop with the head. He spoke to the heart concluding his message to the crowds at this time: “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls.”

Notice too, in the following chapter of Matthew, Jesus rejected the longings of the crowd for more empirical evidence (12:38-39, see also 16:1-4). Evidence was neither bad nor good, but apparently it was not primary in Jesus’ mind—the heart was.

The Parables of the Kingdom

Jesus’ parables in Matthew 13 again target longing. He began with the parable of the sower, showing a set of hearts: hard, shallow, surrounded by thorns, and then a “good” heart which bore fruit. Again, this is a pitch to the longings of the “large crowds” to become like the good soil.

Jesus then spoke of wheat and weeds being harvested at the eschaton, and the weeds being separated out and burned while the wheat was invited in. So too Jesus described the end like a large catch of fish, the good fish being received, the bad thrown away. Just as Moses had concluded his great sermon with an encouragement to “choose life,” so to Jesus. But the preference of life over death is not made by rationality; its made by the heart.

Of course longing is most clear at the very center of Matthew 13—the very center of the Gospel itself—when Jesus says, “The Kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold everything he had and bought the field.” The field (as so often in Jesus’ parables) is the earth, the man who has entered is Jesus himself, the treasure is you and I, and Jesus—not because of rational deductions but because of longing—has given everything he had to purchase that field, so he might return and enjoy the treasure within.

When Jesus presented the Kingdom, his appeal was to one’s heart and longings—even his own (for more see this book).

The Heart

We could go on and on with examples, but perhaps what Jesus’ criticized showcases Jesus’ targeting of the heart over the mind most clearly. Speaking to the teachers of the law and Pharisees, Jesus’ inverted the blessings of the Beatitudes by pronouncing seven woes unveiling how God saw the “children of hell”. The closing woes focus on the heart, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence … You are like whitewashed tombs … full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean” (Mt 23:25-28).

The very word “hypocrite”—which Jesus used as a condemnation seven times here—means an actor or one with a mask. One who looks one way, but inside is different. It is clear that Jesus cared most about the insides.

The heart, not reason, was most vital to Jesus and his kingdom message. The entire Sermon on the Mount is arguably about the heart: a heart that is honest, has abandoned lust and rage, that is refined through fasting, prayer, giving in secret, and that is free from greed, worry, and judgment. The good heart walks through the gate leading to life. It is like a tree that bears good fruit. It rests on a rock and stands in the middle of hurricanes.

As such Jesus pronounced blessing—not on the smart—but on the Pure in Heart for they would see God.

Punch Line

The intellect is important. Its part of the whole human person, but it is not everything. In fact, we should note a truth that seems to stand behind all Jesus said and did: faith begins in the heart not in the head.

So, what should we say to the one who’s “defense of the faith” elevates the mind over the heart, or worse yet steps on the heart while reaching for the mind as thought the heart was secondary?

They may not only fail to see a person come to Christ; they may help build a wall which makes that soul irretrievable.

Jeff Cook lectures on philosophy at the University of Northern Colorado. He pastors Atlas Church and is the author of Everything New: One Philosopher’s Search for a God Worth Believing in (Subversive 2012). You can see his work at: www.everythingnew.org

TGC and Did Jesus Preach the Gospel?

Last updated on: August 25, 2012 at 11:49 am By Scot McKnight

Because of the number of folks writing me to respond to this question here goes… TGC, as I understand it, will devote some of its energies this year to the gospel and if Jesus preached it, but a video was put up on their site in which there is a conversation with D.A. Carson, Tim Keller and John Piper dealing with this question — with my former colleague, D.A. Carson, leading the questions. Since it was brief I will offer only a few brief comments.

First, I’m glad they are asking this question. I was with a friend the other day, I asked him straight up, “Are the Gospels the gospel?” With a bit of a look of dismissal and condescension, he said No with the suggestion that it’s clear for everyone but me. He’s at odds with Carson, Keller and Piper on this one. They think Luke presents the gospel. I agree.

Second, there was a bit of an assumption that they knew what the gospel already was and they were asking if the Gospels, and their focus was the Gospel of Luke, fit that already-understood-gospel. They didn’t have time to discuss and define the meaning of “gospel,” but this issue is not without strategic importance here. Some would want to ask if Paul preached Jesus’ gospel, and one good example of someone who asks that is Mike Bird.

Third, the guiding assumption seemed clear to because of how the conversation progressed: it was an attempt to show that the Gospel of Luke can be read as teaching a soteriology of the cross (not enough on resurrection, but that’s not their problem alone — many of us struggle with getting resurrection in the gospel). In fact, there was a rather common problem here: they kept speaking about the “narrative” of Luke, which simply misses the point. Discussion of Luke’s “narrative” means we are not asking if Jesus preached the gospel but if Luke’s narrative art presented the gospel. D.A. Carson, I thought, made a good point: he said the narrative of Luke showed a Jesus who faced Jerusalem from Luke 9:51 on. Well, yes, I think that’s very true — though it is the words of Luke and not he words of Jesus. I take it to be a genuine record of the action of Jesus, but it still remains “words in black” in red-letter editions. I’d rather see discussion of Mark 10:45 (not in Luke in the same form) and the Lord’s supper narrative in Luke, which Carson did bring up. Piper brought in his case that Luke 18 teaches justification by faith and imputation (by reading narrativally the connection of the parable of the tax collector and then the rich man story).

Fourth, overall I wanted more but their time was limited and the more I wanted is this: The Gospels are called the “Gospel” because they are the gospel, and they are the gospel because they tell the Story of Jesus, which is how Paul said all the apostles understood the gospel in 1 Cor 15:3-5 (Piper did go to 1 Cor 15:3 and mentioned “for our sins”). Which leads to this over all conclusion: I thought the discussion was shaped by showing the Gospel of Luke has the soteriology of Paul/their theology while I would want to argue that asking if Jesus preached the gospel is asking if Jesus himself told a Story in which he was the fulfillment, as the King, as the Messiah, as the Lord and as the one who saves us from our sins. Jesus’ message was utterly self-centered! That’s gospeling. In other words, while their focus was soteriology, the Gospels teach us that the first step is christology and that will lead us inevitably to Jesus the Savior and a soteriology.

So, I liked what they said but I didn’t like what they didn’t say: Christology is first, soteriology flows from Christology.

Economics Since Jesus

Last updated on: June 25, 2012 at 7:04 am By Scot McKnight

By James Nye: “Viewed as a whole, the graph shows the creeping restoration of Asian economic supremacy as the rest-of-the-world catches up to the West and surpasses its levels of industrialisation. Charting the globe’s 10 major powers since the time of Jesus, the graph can be broken down by simply applying a cut off point at around the 1800 AD mark.”

Jesus and Theocracy

Last updated on: April 9, 2012 at 6:59 am By Scot McKnight

The problem with so many Christian perceptions of Jesus is that it is a “body without the cloak” — Tom Wright’s expression in his new book How God Became King. That is, if we remove the bits at the beginning and the end – namely, the bits in the creeds, all you get is:

Jesus the revolutionary, Jesus the visionary, or Jesus the teacher of sweet reasonableness.

Wright thinks there is simply too much “unfaith seeking understanding” — a bias against the creeds and a bias against the middle bits in the Gospels. Wright thinks “it is possible to offer a historically rooted picture of Jesus that is much fuller and more positive than the one classic liberal reductionism has constructed” (29). In this, I believe Tom Wright has become the Christian apologist for postmoderns, though the word “apologist” might not even be an appropriate word for postmoderns. Still, you know what I’m saying.

Question for our day: Was the kingdom vision of Jesus necessarily theocratic? Follow up: Was the kingdom vision of Jesus naturally leading toward Constantine, which Constantine messed up, but was his vision ultimately an empire? Including a political one? A social one?

Wright weighs in briefly on the social gospel with this damning evaluation: “The problem is that, a century after the ‘social gospel’ was at its high-water mark, the world, including the Western world, still seems to be a place of great wickedness” (31, emphasis added). That is, he asks, “Has anything changed?” [This is a potent critique, but what is left standing?]

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Reflections on Sticky Faith and The King Jesus Gospel (RJS)

Last updated on: February 23, 2012 at 8:36 am By RJS

Last summer Scot posted a few times on the book Sticky Faith by Kara Powell and Chap Clark. This book contains a wealth of good advice for parents, especially parents of younger children looking for ways to build faith in their children. The book also discusses the kinds of things that churches can do to help build what they call “Sticky Faith” in their youth. I have a few doubts about this material, whether what Powell and Clark suggest will really have an impact.

Among the statistics Powell and Clark start off with: 40-50% of those who graduate from a church or youth group will fail to stick with faith in college. (I’d give a page number but the e-book doesn’t have them; one of the real draw backs for scholarly work). This is nothing to write home about, but not apocalyptic either.

Another statistic to consider: Of those who leave faith in college 30 to 60% will return by their late 20’s or early 30’s.

So we are left with a statistic – if the future matches the past – suggesting that of the kids currently in church and youth groups 65 to 84% will retain or return to faith. The error range is fairly large – but according to the statistics they give under the current arrangements in the mix we will “lose” something like 16% to 35% of the youth currently in our church youth groups; that is something between 1 in 3 and 1 in 6. Again the number is not apocalyptic requiring massive changes, but is large enough for some concern; especially if the “loss” is in the range of 1 out of every 3.

What does this mean for the church?

Can the percentage “retained” be higher?

What should we be doing?

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Ed Stetzer Interview on King Jesus Gospel

Last updated on: February 14, 2012 at 9:17 pm By Scot McKnight

Ed Stetzer opened his blog last Wednesday for an interview he conducted with me about The King Jesus Gospel, and I’m reposting that interview here.

What was your primary purpose for writing this book?

I have been working on “gospel” for about a decade, beginning in my classes at North Park and some of this has been written up in Embracing Grace and A Community called Atonement. All along I had a sneaking suspicion that a whole new angle had to be found in order to open up a more completely biblical approach to the meaning of gospel. I had been following a traditional line of thinking and trying to be more biblical. That is, I was following the line of thinking that gospel and salvation (soteriology in technical terms) were more or less the same thing. I was seeking to expand salvation to biblical proportions – personal, physical, church, society – and I joined many voices in that pursuit. But all along I kept asking myself: what about 1 Corinthians 15, which doesn’t focus on salvation but on Jesus as Messiah and Lord, and most especially I kept asking where to put the gospel sermons in Acts? For a set of lectures in Stellenbosch I devoted myself to the Book of Acts and around the same time I became convinced that Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) are the gospel itself.

This set of factors is the entire purpose of why I wrote this book: I wanted to offer a more biblical view of gospel and to put what many of us (and I was one of them) call gospel to the test. (more…)

Science and Theology 1 – Science as Context (RJS)

Last updated on: December 13, 2011 at 5:58 am By RJS

Over the course of the next month or so I am going to look at three recent books by The Rev. Dr. Polkinghorne. The first, Theology in the Context of Science, I will begin today. The other two, Testing Scripture: A Scientist Explores the Bible and Science and Religion in Quest of Truth, will follow.

Dr. John Polkinghorne was a very successful scientist, an expert and creative theoretical physicist involved in the discovery of quarks. He was Professor of Mathematical Physics at Cambridge University before he resigned to study for the Anglican priesthood. He has since been a parish priest, Dean of the Chapel at Trinity Hall Cambridge and President of Queen’s College, Cambridge. After retirement he continues to write, think, and lecture about the interface between science and faith. I’ve read and commented on a couple of his books – Quarks, Chaos & Christianity and Belief in God in an Age of Science – in previous posts (you can find a list of posts in the Science and Faith Archive on the sidebar.)

The question asked in Theology in the Context of Science is straightforward.

Can science and the study of science and religion provide a context for theology?

We’ve entered an age where greater awareness of the world, understanding of history, and sensitivity to power structures and cultural influences has led to contextual theologies. There are streams of thought referred to as liberation theology, feminist theology, black theology, South-East Asian theology, African theology, and more. At their worst these various perspectives distort the orthodox Christian faith, throwing the Bible under the bus for the sake of a cultural correctness and situation. At their very best these various perspectives enhance our understanding of the depth and richness of the orthodox Christian faith and of the power of God’s work in his creation.

Dr. Polkinghorne suggests that science is another context for theology that can enhance and inform our Christian faith.

I believe, therefore, that the field of science and religion should be treated as another form of contextual theology, rather than its role being seen simply as that of providing useful information which can be referred to as seems necessary – usually rather briefly and often as part of an apologetic exercise. The dialog between science and religion can rightly seek to contribute to creative theological thinking itself, in complementary relationship with other forms of contextual theology. (p. xii)

Do you think science should provide a context for theology?

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