The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

Jemar Tisby is the author of the much talked about book, The Color of Compromise. Tisby also serves as president of The Witness: a Black Christian Collective, cohosts the Pass the Mic podcast, and is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Mississippi.

The interview was conducted by David George Moore. Some of Dave’s videos can be accessed at www.mooreengaging.com.

Moore: I’ve been thinking much of late how C.S. Lewis and George Orwell both believed that words are powerful. You write that “complicity” is not an adequate word to depict the lack of involvement among whites when it comes to race. Would you unpack that some for us? I’m also curious why you still chose complicity in the title of your book and even regularly throughout the book?

Tisby: Further down in that same paragraph I explain, “Even if only a small portion of Christians committed the most notorious acts of racism, many more white Christians can be described as complicit in creating and sustaining a racist society.” So, complicity is a weak word when describing the most extreme and violent manifestations of anti-black racism. I needed to express the idea that “complicity” would not be adequate to describe all white Christian responses in the face of racism. There were plenty of people who claimed to love God but hated their neighbors of color and maliciously acted on that animosity. But the vast majority of Christians, especially laypeople, simply exhibited willful ignorance, apathy, or silence in face of racial atrocities. In this sense, then, complicity is an accurate word to describe the great mass of “moderate” Christians whose inaction permitted a society based on racial stratification to form.

Moore: Your book is clear and convicting. Among white audiences, what are some of the most encouraging things you’ve heard about the book?

Tisby: After a talk I gave about the book, a person who described himself as a “60 year old white man from the South” came up to me with tears in his eyes and said the book was helping him overcome the truncated and distorted view of race and history that he had learned. On countless other occasions, white Christians have sent me messages telling me how they’ve used the book as conversation starters with relatives and friends. Older black Christians who lived through much of the hard history I tell in the book hug me in appreciation for helping to their story. I love hearing stories about groups gathering to discuss the book in community. Most encouraging, my niece who is in third grade did a book report about The Color of Compromise. I had to learn much of this history as an adult, so I’m glad that younger generations can access this information long before I did.

Moore: You’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this issue, not only because of the research for this book, but also because you are in the midst of a PhD program in history. Can you highlight a few things that surprised you in your research, or possibly altered your thinking in some way?

Tisby: The ubiquity of racism has given me pause. I’ve read hundreds of academic books on history and in every single field—labor, gender, politics, military, etc.—race always figures prominently. It disappointed me to observe that almost every time historians highlighted Christianity and race, followers of Christ, at least those with the most social and ecclesiastical power, were almost always on the wrong side of justice.

Not just the breadth but also the depth of racism in the church took me aback. From the moment Christopher Columbus contacted Native Americans, paternalistic ideas of race were at the forefront. He evaluated indigenous people only based on how well they could assimilate to European culture (including their version of Christianity) and what kind of servants they might make. In 1667, the Virginia Assembly made a law re-assuring slaveholders that baptism would not emancipate an enslaved person. That’s more than a century before the political entity known as the United States of America came into being. So, there was never a “great” period of American history when race was not a problem. It is the depth and breadth of racism in the nation and the church that filled me with godly anger and a desire to broadcast these truths to a wider audience in hopes of change.

Moore: How does the separation of the church from so-called political matters affect the issues revolving around race in America?

Tisby: Separating racial issues from the gospel makes it easy for churches and individual Christians to sidestep this pernicious problem. If racism is mainly a civil or political issue, then Christians have no obligation to intervene. Historically Christians have used doctrines such as the “spirituality of the church” to play the role of Pontius Pilate at wash their hands of racism. But Christians in this nation cannot downplay their complicity in racism. History rife with the receipts. In addition to the perpetuation of a racist status quo, the effect of such conflict avoidance is that black Christians have chosen to separate themselves from their spiritual brothers and sisters who seem unconcerned about the injustices racism has heaped upon black communities both past and present. A refusal to embrace a holistic gospel that includes social justice has kept the body of Christ divided along racial and theological lines.

Moore: As you well know, there has been a statement decrying “social justice” which was signed by many evangelical leaders. What, if anything, did they get wrong?

Tisby: The so-called statement on social justice and the gospel got too many things wrong to name them all. Stepping back from the actual document, the intention itself is open to critique. In my estimation, the writers and signatories have responded to an imagined enemy. They have taken the most extreme forms of ideology and transposed them onto brothers and sisters in Christ. They have accused me and others of replacing the gospel with Communist, Marxist ideas of collectivism. I am simply a student of history. When you see how Christians acted in racist ways in spite of, and sometimes because of, their religious beliefs, it leads to certain conclusions to understand about how race and what to do about it. Studying history compels you to focus not just on isolated acts of racial animus but to pay attention to the ways our entire society has been built upon notions of racism and white supremacy.

In general, white Christians think very individualistically overall and especially when it comes to race. Race relations in the church would improve exponentially if more people understood the systemic and institutional manifestations of racism and then acted to counteract those forces.

Moore: It seems that the hyper-individualized understanding of faith among conservative Christians can blind us to the reality of “structures of evil.” What have you found to be most helpful in persuading Christians to consider the reality of structures of evil?

Tisby: I actually think we need to spend a bit less time persuading recalcitrant Christians about the reality of systemic and institutional racism. There is a small but vocal and increasingly aggressive contingent of Christians on the blogosphere and social media who not only resist the idea of structural racism, they attack those who see the issue differently. These people leech away time and energy from more profitable pursuits. I recommend Christians spend more time advocating for the marginalized than attempting to persuade those who merely want to argue. These are spiritual issues, and one must exhibit a level of humility to learn about the ways racism continues to affect the church and the nation, especially if it is a reality that goes against a long-held narrative about how race functions.

That said, there are those who may not agree that structural racism is an issue, but they are open to learning more. In those cases, I start with sources they already trust. So, of course, the Bible is at the top of the list. I point to passages such as Leviticus 19:15, Deuteronomy 16:19, Ezekiel 22:29 and many other verses that speak of injustice occurring on a system-wide level. I also point to other sources such as denominational resolutions about race and confessions of faith that explain the practical implications of biblical commands. From there I move on to other sources such as books on history and sociology.

A last word on persuading Christians about systemic and institutional injustice…white Christians have a great responsibility to help educate other white people in their networks about this issue. Many black Christians will never have the same level of access or trust with white people that other white people have. We will not be able to talk to you uncle or grandmother, your roommate, or co-worker, but you can. In those moments, when only white people are around but another white person chooses to interrupt racism, those are the times when some of the most important anti-racist work happens.

Moore: What are two or three things you hope your readers will take from this book?

Tisby: I hope people understand at least these two themes: 1) racism never goes away, it just adapts and 2) It didn’t have to be this way. If racism is sin, which it is, then we should expect that it will never completely disappear until Jesus returns. But if one’s concept of racism is limited to people donning white robes and hoods and burning crosses on lawns, then you will be tempted to think that racism is largely a problem of the past and relatively rare in the present. Racism has not gone away. It has just gone underground. We must have our ears attuned to the dog-whistles, and sometimes bullhorns, politicians use in their rhetoric. We need to peel back the layers of inequality and ask how racism has excluded scores of people from opportunities. It’s there if we have eyes to see.

Secondly, it didn’t have to be this way. Historians often talk about the concept of “contingency.” It’s the idea that historical circumstances are full of dependent variables. Small changes here or there could have resulted in different outcomes. When it comes to race, this means that a racist society was not inevitable. Although racism is entrenched now, there have always been alternatives when individuals could have made different decisions, more just and equitable ones, that would have led to less racist conditions. This points to the last idea I hope people take away from The Color of Compromise. If it didn’t have to be this way in the past, then it doesn’t have to be this way in the future. We have the opportunity right now to make different and better decisions when it comes to race in the church. We can commit to forging a more racially just future for our children and the household of God. We can refuse to practice a complicit Christianity and instead choose to practice a courageous Christianity.

A LITTLE BOOK FOR NEW HISTORIANS

(Robert) Tracy McKenzie is Arthur F. Holmes Chair of Faith and Learning along with being a professor of history at Wheaton College. He is the author of several books. His book, The First Thanksgiving, was the subject of a previous interview here:

Tracy’s latest book is the short, but long on wisdom, A Little Book for New Historians.

David George Moore conducted this interview. Some of Dave’s teaching and interview videos can be found at www.mooreengaging.com.

Moore: What was the impetus for writing this book?

McKenzie: Intervarsity Press approached me some years ago about contributing to a prospective series, now well under way, designed to provide brief introductions to academic disciplines from a Christian perspective. Each book in the IVP series is titled “A Little Book for New _____” with titles already out for new scientists, philosophers, theologians, and now historians, among others. The expectation is that the series will primarily find an audience in Christian college classrooms, but I believe that the book can be useful and accessible to anyone who wants to think “Christianly” about the past. That’s my heart’s desire, at least.

Moore: Enrollment steadily decreases of students with majors in the humanities. What do you think are some of the most significant reasons why, what can be done about it?

McKenzie: The conventional answer is that the economy drives such patterns above all else, with the recession that began in 2008 discouraging college students (and their parents) away from “soft” academic disciplines that don’t seem to guarantee immediate lucrative employment after graduation. I think there’s a lot to that. There’s also been a concerted emphasis at the K-12 level on STEM disciplines, predating the recession, that reinforces the narrative that the humanities are a poor investment. I am reflexively suspicious of simple answers, however, and I suspect that there are multiple other variables at play as well.

What to do about it? The common response in humanities departments is to challenge the widespread perception that humanities grads all end up as baristas, to make the case that rigorous liberal arts programs actually inculcate a variety of analytical, persuasive, and communication skills that equip students to flourish in a broad range of occupational contexts. A common argument is to look at post-graduation income patterns and to observe that humanities grads start out at lower incomes but that they “catch up” within a few years. While this appears to be true, I am always uneasy in making such arguments, because at bottom they tacitly accept the cultural assumption that the only education worth paying for is vocational education. This is why I insist on telling every prospective student who visits Wheaton—and the parents who often accompanying them—that while rigorous training in the humanities can actually prepare them for a broad range of career paths, there are even greater goals to aspire to, namely to learn how to pursue wisdom to the glory of God, the love of our neighbor, and the edification of our souls.

Moore: Does being a Christian have much of a bearing on how you understand and teach history?

McKenzie: It doesn’t automatically. Almost every academic historian in the United States has been trained in a secular graduate program, and one of the things that the Academy does well is to teach its citizens to compartmentalize religious beliefs that would threaten the reigning materialist orthodoxy. It’s a “don’t ask, don’t tell” environment in which students and professors are supposed to bracket their religious convictions, reserving them for a portion of their lives that is safely sealed off from their academic vocations. When we begin really to take seriously the scriptural command to “take every thought captive to obedience to Christ,” however, the compartmentalization that the Academy demands becomes profoundly frustrating and dispiriting. That was my experience, in any case. To answer your question, I would say that being a Christian should affect how I understand and teach history. God has created us as historical beings who live in time, with all that that means. He has implanted in us a historical faith, and he has bound us to the past by engrafting us into a historical church. I believe that when we approach the study of the past with humility and awe, recognizing the past as a sphere that God has ordained and prompted by biblical dictates and principles, the study of history can become both an act of obedience and an expression of worship.

Moore: You write that history “involves a conversation in the present about the past” but at its best “a conversation in the present with the past.” (Italics yours) What is the difference?

McKenzie: At the outset of the Little Book I do my best to drive home the basic truth that history is not synonymous with the past, that in fact the difference between the two is vast. Then, rather than offer them a propositional definition of “history,” I choose instead to develop a series of metaphors to inform their thinking about what is history is, why it is important, and how they might learn to think historically themselves. One of those metaphors is conversation. At the most basic level, in juxtaposing conversation about the past and with the past, I am simply trying to help students think about the difference between primary and secondary historical sources. We enter into conversation about the past when we engage secondary sources. We enter into conversation with the past through the study of primary sources. At a deeper level, I also want to challenge students to seek transformative knowledge, and in this respect I also find the about/with distinction helpful. In contrast to conversing about the past, conversing with the past connotes a level of intimacy and immediacy and raises the possibility that in conversing with we might actually learn from. One of my favorite quotes, which I include on the syllabus for every course that I teach, is David Harlan’s observation that, at its best, the study of history can be “a conversation with the dead about what we should value and how we should live.”

Moore: Most Americans, and yes, this would include most American Christians (!) live in echo chambers. It is reflected in a variety of ways like only watching one cable news network. How does the study of history help us to better scrutinize the problems with our comfortable echo chambers?

McKenzie: Echo chambers are an obstacle to the examined life, or in scriptural terms, they make it impossible to “take every thought captive.” The reason for this is simple: We rarely think deeply about questions that we consider settled. Why should we? If we don’t know personally a single intelligent, well-meaning person who disagrees with us on an issue, it becomes all too easy to conclude that all other perspectives are either the product of ignorance or malevolence; those who disagree with us must be either stupid or evil. This is deathly to the life of the mind.

But echo chambers aren’t defined solely by which cable news network you watch, and they’re not limited exclusively to ghettos of red or blue voters. Areas in which there is agreement across the political divide can assume a sort of “givenness” as well, leading to the unspoken assumption that the current way of seeing things is the only plausible way. Nearly eighty years ago, C. S. Lewis predicted that among the things that would shock future generations about the 1940s, that would cause future historians to marvel how any intelligent people could believe such a thing or act in such a way, would include values on which Hitler and Roosevelt were agreed. The study of history helps us to see the values and assumptions of our own moment that are so ubiquitous that we neither see them nor scrutinize them. To cite just one example, contemporary American culture is supremely individualistic as compared to the 18^th century, but because that value is so nearly universal today, it becomes invisible to us until we engage with a time when the predominant values were starkly different.

Moore: I am grateful that you touched on the need for scholars to demonstrate, especially in their own lives, that disciplines like history should have a “so what?” component. Would you unpack a bit why you included that particular need?

McKenzie: Academic historians typically define the “significance” of our scholarship first and foremost in terms of its historiographical contribution, by which we mean how it either expands on, modifies, or challenges what other academic historians have said on the subject. What is missing from this definition is any concern about whether individuals outside the Academy have read, understood, and benefited in any significant way from our labors. If anything, historians whose readership becomes too large run the risk of no longer being taken seriously by their peers. As a Christian, this bugs me. When the early Reformers first began to write about vocation, one thing they quickly agreed on is that vocation is intertwined with the call not only to love God but also to love neighbor. They took for granted that every legitimate vocation, albeit in different ways, must serve the common good. And so in the Little Book I challenge readers to insist on a “so what” answer that is not first and foremost historiographical. It’s entirely appropriate when students conduct research to determine what previous historians have concluded on a given subject, I just don’t want them to stop there. Invariably, they will begin by exploring what happened in the past and why, but I also them to meditate on the meaning of what they are learning, to learn to wrestle with the significance of the knowledge that they’re acquiring to the present. When they conduct their own research, I want them to remember that they are listening to the dead in order to speak to the living, or more precisely, to be a blessing to them.

Moore: What are a few things you would like readers to take away from your book?

McKenzie: One of the things that I consciously tried to do is to tear down the barrier that academic historians too often erect between the Academy and the larger society by insisting that “history” is something that only trained historians do. I argue instead, as Margaret Macmillan put it, that “History is something we all do, even if, like the man who discovered he was writing prose, we do not always realize it.” We are all unavoidably historians, in that we necessarily draw from the past to understand the present and address the future. God has created us as historical beings. But this doesn’t mean that we are naturally good at historical thinking. Another hope that I have is that readers would get a glimpse of how the systematic development of historical habits of mind can enrich their lives. I believe that any academic pursuit worthy of being labeled “educational” should change us in three ways: in what we know, in how we think, and in who we are. Perhaps my highest hope for the Little Book is that it would convince readers that the study of history can be genuinely transformative.

Gun violence is matched seemingly weekly by pleas for gun control and by counter pleas for gun rights. All sorts of guns, hand guns and guns that make absolutely no sense for any person to own.

What about Christians? What about the way of the cross and gun violence, gun control and gun rights? Does the way of the cross have anything to do with these questions? Is it all about rights?

A new book by a pastor, one who grew up (as I did) with guns for toys as a child and then owned a gun for hunting, Donald V. Gaffney is called Common Ground: Talking about Gun Violence in America. It’s a good place to begin a conversation about guns.

For many Christians the logic works like this: it’s a right to own a gun, it’s a free country, leave them alone. For others it works like this: we have a problem, it’s a violence problem, and Christians ought — because Jesus was a man of the way of the cross — to lead the way away from violence. Even if it means surrendering some rights.

I believe a responsible approach is to get pastors to be willing to speak up about the problem of gun violence, to speak against gun violence and to propose divesting ourselves of guns.

Gaffney thinks we have to think about our childhoods.

Think about how the era in which you grew up affected your experience of guns: Were movies more about gun-slinging cowboys or laser-shooting space weapons? If you grew up in the 1980s or ’90s, conversations around guns may have centered more on the appropriateness of certain video games. Your parents may have objected to guns as playthings. All of these childhood influences are powerful in shaping our visceral response to the role of guns in our culture.

Gaffney attended Sandy Hook as a child; he has friends in that community today.

Until a few years ago, other than my wife’s issues, I never gave guns or gun violence much thought. Then an esteemed colleague and mentor committed a murder-suicide. His wife had terminal cancer, and he apparently couldn’t bear it. One morning, he shot her in her sleep. called the police to report it, and then shot himself. A year before the Sandy Hook Massacre, one of our older son’s best friends from high school committed suicide. He had been battling depression most of his life. The weekend after Thanksgiving he parked his car on a bridge and turned a shotgun on himself.

Think of Gabby Gifford, a well-known victim of gun violence, or Suzanna Gratia Hupp, whose story Gaffney tells.

For some people, witnessing gun violence—whether through the news or the experiences of family and friends makes them want to limit the availability of guns. For others, seeing such violence in the world makes them see guns as a necessary means of protection.

Gabby Gifford and her husband astronaut Mark Kelly decided something could be done:

They talked about gun violence and what they might do to make a difference. The massacre in Newtown on December 14, 2012, drove them to action. They reached out to their support network to see if funding could be available through donations. It was. Next came the name. While serving in Congress, Gabby was always a moderate, trying to be reasonable and responsible. As Mark later wrote, “We knew what the name should not contain: no guns, no rifles, no control, no violence. We weren’t against anything; we simply wanted to bring people together to solve real problems.” They named the organization Americans for Responsible Solutions and publically [c’mon WJKP] launched it on the second anniversary of the Tucson shooting.

Two questions:

Do we have a problem?

Is this a good place to start? (Responsible solutions)

The Bible is the central document of the Christian faith. It is, we believe, more than just another ancient text. It is more than a human record of the past. It is also less than perfectly clear. This isn’t some kind of well written set of propositions to guide life. But it is centered on God’s revelation of his work in the world.  Several years ago I read an interesting little book by John Polkinghorne, theoretical physicist turned priest, Testing Scripture: A Scientist Explores the Bible. In chapter 4 he explores the ambiguity he finds in the bible. It is worth looking at again.

The tapestry of life is not coloured in simple black and white, representing an unambiguous choice between the unequivocally bad and the unequivocally good. The ambiguity of human deeds and desires means that life includes many shades of grey. What is true of life in general is true also of the bible in particular. An honest reading of scripture will acknowledge the presence in its pages of various kinds of ambiguity. (p. 33)

In many ways ambiguity simply means real life, the incidents and characters in scripture are multidimensional. Even the best of humans are not all good and fail at times, sometimes quite spectacularly. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David are good examples here. They lie, they steal, they swindle, they murder and they benefit from their deceit. The bible whitewashes none of this.

The violence and the outworking of justice in the Old Testament provide other examples of ambiguity. Achan died for his theft and deceit, and his family died with him despite the fact that he confessed when confronted (Joshua 7). David suffered no such fate for violating God’s commandments (2 Sam 11-12). Jesus, Matthew tells us, is descended from Solomon, son of David by Uriah’s wife. (Luke has the descent of Jesus run though Nathan to David, avoiding Solomon … another kind of ambiguity to consider).

Do you see ambiguity in scripture? If so, where?

There are other aspects to the ambiguity in scripture, aspects that deal with God and the character of God. Dr. Polkinghorne begins with Genesis 22 where God tested Abraham telling him to sacrifice Isaac on an altar at Mount Moriah. This story seems pointless and unnecessarily severe. Perhaps this story was intended to teach Israel that the child sacrifice practiced by neighboring nations was not God’s will. Perhaps we should read it Christologically. The story of Abraham and Isaac is a type (a symbolically anticipatory event) of the death of Christ on the cross. But there is ambiguity in the event and in its purpose.

Dr. Polkinghorne sees ambiguity as well in some of the NT stories of the life of Jesus.

The miracle at the wedding at Cana seems out of place. Is this a matter of fact report of a miracle at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus? The placement in John just before the cleansing of the Temple must have a symbolic purpose. Is the transformation of water to wine a real event? Or could it be a symbolic narrative incorporated as if enacted to make a point about Jesus? Of course it could be both – an enacted symbolic event.

The interaction between Jesus and the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:21-28 is another incident Dr. Polkinghorne finds ambiguous. He suggests that Jesus in his humanity was unsure what to do in this instance. Jesus was persuaded to action by the woman’s bold stance.

Judas Iscariot is an ambiguous character. He was chosen by Jesus and yet he betrayed Jesus.

Much Christian thinking has seen Judas as wholly evil from the start, as if he were a kind of devil incarnate. I do not think this is credible in the light of his having been chosen by Jesus. I find helpful the interpretation of Judas offered by Dorothy Sayers in her play-cycle about Jesus, The Man Born to be King. She suggests that Judas, like Peter, found it difficult to accept that Jesus was not going to be a militant Messiah who would destroy the forces of the Roman occupying power, but that he was to be a crucified Messiah, accepting the way of the suffering (Mark 8:31-33). (p. 39)

Perhaps Judas tried to force the matter and when it led to crucifixion he was overcome by remorse and driven to suicide. (Mt 27:1-5)

The ambiguity doesn’t end with the gospels. Dr. Polkinghorne also sees ambiguity in the writings of Paul. Paul wrestles around many different issues, at times his deep humanity and his struggles show through, at other times he writes with deep theological insight.

The presence of ambiguity in the text of scripture should shape our approach to scripture. The bible is not an answer book for all of life’s problems and questions, but a window on God’s interactions with is people and their reaction, good bad, and indifferent with shades of grey.

Do you find any of the ambiguities in scripture troubling? If so, what and why?.

What attitude should we take as we study and meditate on scripture?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

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This is a lightly edited repost.

Sometimes St. Augustine makes my head ache.

He is fascinating, faithful, and far from perfect. His literal interpretation of Genesis is not really what we would term literal in the modern sense. Craig Allert, in Chapter 7 of Early Christian Readings of Genesis One: Patristic Exegesis and Literal Interpretation digs into Augustine and his writings on the days of Genesis 1. To begin to understand Augustine it is necessary to look at his view of time and its relationship to God. Augustine placed God outside of time, with time part of creation. In his view, to do anything else meant that God was subject to change and this violated his philosophical views of God. Allert quotes from Augustine’s Confessions, but the same general idea is found in other writings as well.

Some philosophers considered creation as implying an act of will at some point in time by God, and an act of will implies change in God: “If some change took place in God, and some new volition emerged to inaugurate created being, a thing he had never done before, then an act of will was arising in him which had not previously been present, and in that case how would he truly be eternal?” (p. 269)

Augustine read Scripture within the confines of his extra-biblically determined view of God. (John Calvin did the same and it may well be that none of us completely escape this trap.) Later Allert quotes Augustine from The City of God.

Time does not exist without some movement and change, but there is no movement or change in eternity. Time simply would not exist if no creature had been made to bring about change by means of some motion.

Therefore, since God, in whose eternity there is no change whatsoever, is the creator and governor of time, I do not see how it can be said that he created the world after expanses of time, unless it is claimed that, prior to the world, there was already some created being by virtue of whose motions time was able to pass.

For Augustine, the “holy and utterly truthful Scriptures” tell us that God made heaven and earth in the beginning so that we might know that nothing was made prior to this. If this were not so, he says, Scripture would have told us. Thus, it is “beyond doubt” that the world was not created in time but rather with time. No time could have passed when there was no created being, because created beings provide the change and motion of which time is a function. (p. 273)

Augustine’s understanding of time is not all that different from our modern scientific understanding. Time began with the big bang. Augustine’s understanding of time and creation lead him to some rather interesting conclusions. For example, angels and spiritual beings are creatures active in time and part of creation (not eternal like God himself). How does this fit into the Genesis account?  Consider the opening verses:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

For Augustine this “light” wasn’t the electromagnetic radiation (photons) we understand as “light.” From book 4 of the Literal Meaning of Genesis as quoted by Allert:

We should say the light created originally is the forming and shaping of the spiritual creation, while the night is the material of things still to be formed and shaped in the remaining works, material that had been laid down when in the beginning God made heaven and earth, before he made the day by a word.

Thus, the light that was originally created is a “spiritual, not a bodily light.” How is this spiritual light related to the evenings and mornings that are indicated in the Genesis account? Augustine has already told us that the creation of light in Genesis 1:3 refers to the illumination of the angels. He reasons that the claim in Genesis 1:1 that God made the heavens must include the angels, but since no lapse of time is involved, they must be in an unformed state until God illumines them. The spiritual light (the angels), Augustine explains, was created after the darkness that was over the abyss. He understands this as meaning its transition from its unformed state toward its formation by the Creator. In a similar manner, morning was made after evening, which means that once it knows its own nature (that it is not God), it returns to praise God, who is the true light who formed it in the first place. (p. 282)

The other days of Genesis repeat this process. Allert summarizes:

[T]he temporal importance of the days fades in the distance. The knowledge of the angels being connected to evening and morning simply repeats itself in the days of creation. Morning indicates knowledge of their own spiritual “higher” order, albeit not what God is, while evening indicates a “lesser degree of knowledge” – that is, a knowledge of the lower order of creation. For Augustine, knowledge of a thing in the Word of God is “day,” while knowledge of its own specific nature is “evening.” (p. 283)

Augustine did not consider this an allegorical or figurative reading of Genesis 1. Rather, as Allert emphasizes (p. 286) he considered it a literal interpretation of the actual creation of the world.

Augustine also considered creation as simultaneous rather over an extended period of time.

We are told in Genesis how God finished his work in six days, but Scripture elsewhere tells us that he “created all things simultaneously together.” For Augustine, we should not see this as a contradiction because this one day repeated six or seven times was made simultaneously. The reason why Genesis so “distinctly and methodically” recounts the days is “for the sake of those who cannot arrive at an understanding of the text, ‘he created all things together simultaneously,’ unless scripture accompanies them more slowly, step by step, to the goal to which it is leading them.” (p. 288)

Augustine concluded that God simultaneously planted the “seeds” or ideas and capacities from which the world we know developed.

Allert digs into several other ideas developed in Augustine, including the “beginning” and the role of Jesus in creation.  The Word was with God in the beginning and through whom everything was made.

That is why Augustine sees the second person of the Trinity, the Son, in Genesis 1:1. “In the beginning God made … suggests the Word as the source of creation in its initial creation, its ‘formless imperfection.”‘ But when the text states “God said, let it be made,” it is the Son who is being alluded to. His presence at the beginning means that he is the source of creation as it comes into being. But his being the Word indicates his conferring perfection on creation. The Word calls creation back to himself in order to complete it, “so that it may be given form by adhering to the creator.” (p. 300)

This really only scratches the surface of Augustine on Genesis and creation. Allert goes a somewhat deeper, but still only summarizes a rather complex Christian thinker and writer. However we look at it, Augustine did not interpret Genesis 1 in a modern literal fashion. His reading was shaped by his understanding of God and by cultural ideas of his time and place.

We cannot simply refer back to the early church Fathers to find support for modern “literal” approaches to Scripture. Augustine is no exception here. However, we can learn and grow from reading him on Genesis and pondering his writings and views.

What is a literal interpretation of Scripture?

When is a figurative reading appropriate?

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The final segment of the conversation between Heidi Lene Maibom and N. T. Wright addresses the solution to the previous question “what is wrong with the world?” The moderators narrows the question to consider what the solution means for personal responsibility. The  conversation covers several points worth consideration. Prof. Maibom emphasizes our obligation to our fellow humans. She begins with the idea that we should “each, in our own way do something every day to make the world a little bit of a better place.” (here) Wright picks it up, agreeing with her, but putting the reason for such action into the bigger context of the Christian story. (The section below should start at 1:11:40 in the video.)

Just after Easter, this is well worth considering:

…  But for me the solution lies at least one step, if not two back from what you said, because there is a certain point at which I can hear myself saying what you said to a group of people who would then go and turn on the television news and say really, if this politician or that is going to start a thermonuclear war … or whatever, what’s the point going to all that trouble to be nice to people on the street? Is there a solution to the bigger question? And that’s the really tough issue.

But then behind all of that, the solution from the Christian point of view is that the God who made the world has launched the project of healing and renewing the world within the middle of history. This is what the story of Jesus is all about. The kingdom of God, not as an abstract idea, but as a new way of being human, which has been inaugurated and in which we are invited to participate. And in which the best instincts of the best humans of every tradition such as the one’s you’ve so well articulated, can be affirmed as well. Yes, absolutely, we should be doing that. But the point is we are doing that, not whistling in the dark as the world goes to hell in a hand basket all around us, but as part of a project which we believe will have a goal, a telos, and that is where the virtue thing comes home to roost. … In Christianity, virtue is always a team sport. You can’t do it by yourself. It needs to be done in community. And that’s why love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, self-control, you can do hardly any of those by yourself. You need to be practicing virtue within a community. The re-founding, the re-energizing, of a genuine human community, which then creates a context within which it is easier to choose to do the sorts of things you were talking about. …. It is wonderful when you see that going on.

I have been struck this Easter season by the Christian story as one that raises humility and self-sacrificing love for others as the dominant themes. For God so loved the world. This command I give you that you love one another.  The Easter story isn’t simply a transaction for our salvation.

But, this take on things brings two critiques from Maibom. The first is one of motive. She responds (1:16:14)

I guess, I think that why we should do it is not because it is part of a larger plan, but because that’s what we owe to other human beings for their sake. I do it for your sake no matter what else is true because you’re a fellow creature capable of happiness and suffering and I owe you to do that for your own sake. … Once we understand that others are ‘other selves’ as it were, we understand the value of other creatures, we understand their pains, we understand their suffering. And then, hopefully, we will be motivated to do things for others for their sake.

Love for others, if it comes from a motivation other than true concern for their very being, is only a shadow of the real thing. As a Christian I agree with her that we do it because we owe it to our fellow creatures. I personally root this in Genesis 1:27 – that all humans are created in the image of God, with a vocation and with intrinsic value. Toward the end of the segment, Wright presses a little asking how she would respond to the Machiavellian position that the only thing to do is take what you can and do what is best for you and your tribe.

In response we have Maibom’s second critique as she turns the conversation a bit, to the consideration of good and how we can know what is truly good (1:20:27).

Let me give you a little different response. … Plato … asked the following question: Is something … good because god loves it or does god love it because it’s good? And there, I think, the problem is that if you just make it the case that something is good because god loves it, it could be anything. It makes good arbitrary. And that I think is not what most religious people think. They think that god loves the good because it good. But that means that good is in some way independent of the will of god, right? And I guess that would be my position, that we have access to this idea of the good whether you want to go through a religion or through, for lack of a better word since I am a philosopher, I should say reason.

Is good something that exists apart from God, independent of his will?

How would you respond to Maibom’s claim?

Perhaps we all, independent of religion or tradition, have an inkling of the true nature of good and of love because God created the world. We can reason to it because it is intrinsic to who and what we are. We can also fall far too short, as individuals and on a corporate level as a people. This is why we feel deep down that there is, in fact, something wrong with the world.

The crying shame is how far short the church – the people of God and body of Christ? – so often fall.

Thoughts?

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Two enacted parables worth thinking about during Holy Week.

Last Sunday I turned from the Big Questions to focus on two clips from N. T. Wright’s visit to Cincinnati dealing with the intentional acts of Jesus during Holy Week leading up to his crucifixion and resurrection. Every act of Jesus we have recorded for us in the Gospels displays his intention and vocation. He often enacted parables as well as telling them. No where is this more apparent than in two scenes in John’s version of the events leading up to Good Friday. The first is the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, humble on the colt of a donkey.

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth. (Zech. 9:9-10)

The picture above by William Brassey Hole (1846-1917) tells the story quite well. There is more to this painting than most on the triumphal entry.

The question is simple. When Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, was he acting intentionally? (The clip should start at 38:36 and the relevant portion is just over 3 minutes long.)

The short answer is yes – but Wright goes on:

When Judas Maccabeus surprisingly defeated the Syrians in 164 BC and cleansed the temple, they came into Jerusalem waving palm branches. They are cleansing the temple, this is a celebration. This is all about a new Israel. At last, if we cleanse the temple and if we have a true king, then God will come back at last and dwell properly in the temple and we’ll never have to have this kind of stupid pagan stuff coming again. Now Jesus … chose Passover, that’s a really interesting phenomenon … according to John’s gospel Jesus was to and forth from Jerusalem for all the major festivals … If Jesus is going to die for the sins of the world, which moment in the Jewish calendar might he have chosen? Day of atonement, no brainer. No he doesn’t, he chooses Passover because more fundamental is the rescue, the rescue from the Pharaoh, the rescue from Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea and the whole narrative of Exodus and Passover. And Jesus is deliberately reenacting that narrative through the lens of Zechariah chapter 9. Your king comes to you humble and riding on … a colt, the foal of a donkey. And the symbolism with the scriptural echoes is so typical of how lots of Jews thought and acted. But particularly how Jesus himself thought and acted. So many of his parables are full of biblical echoes which are about: this is how the kingdom of God comes, even though it’s surprising. So yes, it is deeply intentional but also kind of quizzical and paradoxical and forces people to think, and forces people into an awkward position where they have to make some decisions too. So yeah, when I was younger I just thought, so OK Jesus found a donkey and rode into Jerusalem. That’s what you do. But no, people didn’t do that … This is a very carefully staged piece of theologically motivated street theater. And it works like that. And Jesus knew exactly what buttons he was pressing and what was going to happen.

The second enacted parable a few days later is another act of humility, this time an enacted parable of both humility and service. John relates an episode not included by the other three gospel writers where Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. This clip comes from a lecture Wright gave during his visit to Cincinnati. It should start at 27 minutes and the relevant section lasts just over 5 minutes.

The woodcut to the right is by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553). The key part of the clip is below (the whole is well worth the time as well):

Within the gospel’s recounting of that ultimate Passover, one scene stands out with special poignancy and power. John’s gospel displays deft artistry and fathomless theology throughout, but especially in the foot washing scene in John chapter 13; where in a few lines, we glimpse a tableau which is both intimate and touching and scary and dangerous. Having begun his gospel as John does with the all creative Word becoming flesh and revealing God’s glory, John begins the shorter second half of his gospel with an acted parable of the same thing. Jesus removes his outer garments and kneels down to wash the disciples’ feet, thereby summing up all that is to come in this act of divine humility, of loving redemption, of cleansing for service. For John, as indeed throughout the New Testament, Jesus vocation to rescue the world from its plight and in so doing to reveal the divine glory in action is focused and symbolized and encoded in an action simultaneously dramatic, fraught with cosmic significance. That’s how John wants you to read it. But also gentle and tender with human emotion. …

If you want to understand the great mysteries of Christian theology, of trinity and incarnation, and atonement itself, you could do worse than spend time with this scene, where the cosmic majesty of God meets the tender intimacy of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. And John 13 begins by saying, having loved his own who were in the world, Jesus loved them to the end, to the uttermost. Here we see what it means. God so loved the world that he gave his only son. A love at once powerful and humble, sovereign and sensitive. And as always Jesus surprises his followers. … This is already a wonderful image of whole person washing of the gospel itself needing only the regular smaller scale washing of dusty feet. But like everything else in John’s gospel it is deliberately leading the eye up to the great saving act to come, in which the filth and mire of the centuries will be washed away in the torrent of water and blood. See from his head, his hands, his feet, sorrow and love flow mingling down.

Jesus then resumes his garments and explains the surface layer of meaning, as I have done this to you, you should do it for one another, which also points forward to the ministries of the gospel unleashed in John 20, as the father sent me so I send you. … The theology of the cross is ultimately only complete when it issues in the foot washing fruit bearing and world transforming mission of Jesus’ followers. It is a one-off. Something happened on Good Friday which changed the world, but part of the whole point is that people who find that they too are changed by it have to share then in the work of implementing what was done.

The story of the cross is not simply sacrifice for sin. It is a far deeper story of self-emptying humility and service. An attitude toward life we are all called to emulate. Paul makes this point clearly in Philippians 2:1-8.

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

Two parables worth pondering during Holy Week 2019.

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By Mike Glenn

In my life, I’ve seen a lot of things. Most of them are pretty forgettable, but some are hard to forget. One of those images I have in my head comes from an event that happened several years ago. Mother Teresa was in the United States on a speaking tour celebrating her humanitarian work in India. During one of the dinners, she was speaking and President Bill Clinton was seated to her immediate left. During her remarks, she came to the issue of abortion and without any warning, turned to President Clinton and told him, in the way only a Catholic nun can tell you, that he had to stop abortion in the United States.

Her actions were so forceful and her gestures so direct I’m still surprised the Secret Service agents didn’t take her down.

But no one in the room moved. President Clinton was respectful and kind. The remarks after the dinner were what you would expect. To be sure, there were some pundits who thought Mother Teresa was inappropriate or over the line, but most people just shrugged and said, “Well, that’s just Mother Teresa. She can say what she wants to. She works with the sick and dying in Calcutta.”

The picture was a little odd. Mother Teresa is barely five feet tall and yet, here she was lecturing the powerful men in the world. How did she find herself in that position?

Well, she didn’t start there. Mother Teresa grew up in modern Macedonia and chose to become a nun when she was eighteen. After joining the Sisters of Loretto, she began teaching school in Calcutta. Working in the city, she became aware of the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. Leaving her teaching position, she started working with the poor. She started an open air school, clinics, hospices and the ministry she’s most known for, working with dying lepers in the city slums.

As people watched her ministry and the love she shared with those who needed her most, she was elevated in the minds and hearts of the people in Calcutta. She was called an angel. People came from around the world to seek her counsel and have her pray for them. She was recognized as one of the most important people in the world.

Her ministry and work have been analyzed and studied. Her writings and letters have been published and critiqued. People have studied her life trying to find out how you build a life that impacts the world the way hers did. Scholars have written about her leadership style and offered lessons to modern CEOs about how to get things done.

Yet, for all of our studies, we seem to have missed the most important lesson of her ministry. What’s that lesson? Go where no one else wants to go. Do what no one else wants to do. Everyone in Calcutta saw the same problems Mother Teresa did. Everyone saw the same suffering. Yet, no one did anything. More than that, no one wanted to do anything. So, when Mother Teresa started doing the ministry no one else wanted to do, no one opposed her. Before any one could stop her, Mother Teresa was given a place on the world stage. All because she went where no one else wanted to go and did what no one else wanted to do.

When Mother Teresa fueled her compassion into action she changed the world.

What does this have to do with the church in post-modern North America? Think about it. The cultural shift in our nation means the church is no longer engaging culture from a position of power. In years past, politicians would come and speak in local pulpits and sought the endorsements of local pastors. Now, having a connection to a faith community is now seen as a liability. The work of the church is actively opposed in some communities.

More and more, the North American church is being moved to fringes our of our society. Instead of fighting this new reality, Mother Teresa would tell us to embrace it. Throughout church history, the church has struggled when it was the center of cultural and political power. Now, the church is no longer welcome in the power centers of our culture and everyone knows it. Don’t fight it. Embrace it.

And how do you that? By being the good Samaritan. In the story of the good Samaritan, Jesus teaches us our neighbor is the next person we meet who needs our help. Look around. My guess, you’ll see countless things that need to be done, should be done and could be done if someone would just do them.

James tells us we sin when we don’t do those things we know are right to do. But when we do them, the church can change the world. We have before. Our history in North America has been starting hospitals and children’s homes, colleges and shelters for the homeless. There are entire swaths of our population who have been disenfranchised, written off, discarded and ignored. Find the opportunity that’s closest to you and engage. Don’t worry about what to do next. The Spirit will be faithful.

There are homeless in your community who need help. Find out their names. Learn their stories.

There are local schools who need volunteers to teach reading and tutor math. There are homebound in your neighborhoods who are lonely and need a visit. There are local jails that need mentors and tutors for the prisoners who’ll soon be released back into society.

Remember, Jesus won’t tell us the second thing to do until we do first thing. So, do the first thing and wait for the Spirit to tell you the next step.

Show up. Get to work. Do what needs to be done. Who knows? Maybe you and I can change the world just as Mother Teresa did simply because we were willing to go where no else wanted to go and do what no one else wants to do.

According to Miroslav Volf and Matthew Croasmun there is a crisis in theology (broadly considered through its location in academic institutions in North America) and they speak to this crisis in For the Life of the World.

Remember this from our last post about this new, important book:

We believe the purpose of theology is to discern, articulate, and commend visions of flourishing life in light of God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ. The flourishing of human beings and all God’s creatures in the presence of God is God’s foremost concern for creation and should therefore be the central purpose of theology.

What then is the crisis? It is both external and internal.

The External: shrinking job market, shrinking audience, and shrinking reputation.

The job market for academic theologians is closely related to the job market for academically trained ministers. Most mainline denominations still require academic training of their ordinands. But such denominations are a dwindling category with declining congregations, and they are bereft of financial means to actually hire seminary-trained ministers. Many vibrant and growing churches, on the other hand, don’t see themselves as needing academically trained ministers.

For all three reasons mentioned—diminishing demand of churches for academically trained clergy, closing down of seminaries or their transformation into online educational institutions, and loss of interest in theology in universities and colleges—the job market for PhDs in various theological disciplines is shrinking.

Over the centuries, however, one small segment of communities of faith—the clergy—used to read the work of academic theologians, both the more technical work and its popular versions. They no longer do, considering it largely irrelevant for their profession.

Ministers and lay folks no longer read theology; theologians no longer write for ministers or lay folks. “here is no gain in communicating eloquently and accessibly what has already been deemed arcane and vacuous.”

The general sense is that theology isn’t producing any genuine knowledge that accomplishes anything, that it trades with the irrationality of faith and is useless. Theology was among the founding disciplines of modern universities, the queen of sciences. Today, in many universities and colleges the queen has been deposed; in others she has been tucked away at the very edge of her erstwhile domain out of institutional inertia and, perhaps, a bit of respect for her bygone power and renown.

To exaggerate a bit: academic theology today is composed of specialists in an unrespected discipline who write for fellow specialists about topics that interest hardly anyone else.

But the Internal crisis is actually more significant:

And yet it is hard for theology to persist when it has forgotten its purpose: to critically discern, articulate, and commend visions of the true life in light of the person, life, and teachings of Jesus Christ.

This is the one complex illness that afflicts theology today, its most important crisis. The illness has given rise to two destructive coping strategies, which are tied to two central dimensions of theology, descriptive and normative, each as indispensable as the other. The first coping strategy reduces theology to a deficient version of its descriptive dimension; the second reduces it to a deficient version of its normative dimension. While each strategy has natural affinities with particular theological disciplines, both reductions can be found operating within every theological discipline.

How so? First, theology becomes “science”:

Theology could turn into scientific study of religion, and theologians—along with many other humanities scholars—could come to understand themselves as primarily engaged in a knowledge-producing enterprise, in an endeavor to incrementally increase the human grasp of the world.

This next statement is 100% accurate: “In a typical theological institution of higher learning today, perhaps as many as half the faculty identify themselves as “historians” of one stripe or another—including, as would undoubtedly have shocked their premodern predecessors, nearly all biblical scholars.” I have myself complained of this for a long time even if it is very true that historical work has to be done. Volf-Croasmun are right on this next point, too: “For theology as science, the subject matter of theology is Christianity, or more broadly the world of religions, rather than, as traditionally understood, God and everything else in relation to God (Thomas Aquinas) or “the knowledge of God and ourselves” (Martin Luther and John Calvin), or, as we will argue shortly, the world as the home of God (“the kingdom of God,” in the terminology of the Gospels)” (47). [SMcK: some of you may wonder why I don’t use page numbers. Because I too often see folks citing what I have posted and using page numbers as if they had read the material themselves. So, only occasionally do I now cite page numbers. The books are marked in my copies so I can find the page numbers if I need them.]

They turn to distortions of normativity: “The issue is not, as the complaint sometimes goes, that theologians like to debate arcane topics that seem detached from real life/2 That may be the case, but there are more significant problems for the normative engagements of theologians: nostalgia and attempts at repristinating (on the conservative side) and suspicion and unending critique (on the liberal side).”

Yet theology is trivialized when it is reduced to simply rehearsing and doggedly defending past articulations of the faith, as if the same thing needs to be said at every time and in every place or as if the same formulation means the same thing when used at different times and in different pi
aces.

For many, Christian convictions have been emptied of truth content; they are, even at their best, moves in a cultural power-game, crafted and employed to achieve certain desirable social ends. Those ends themselves typically turn out to be some variation of the modern triple concern with removing limits to freedom, fighting exclusion, and mitigating suffering.

To change the world, we need an “I have a dream” speech, not an “I have a complaint” speech.

Theology reduced to this mode of critique is fundamentally atheological.

Miroslav Volf and Matthew Croasmun contend, contrary to its dry-as-dust reputation, that theology is for the flourishing life in their new and very important manifesto: For the Life of the World.

We believe the purpose of theology is to discern, articulate, and commend visions of flourishing life in light of God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ. The flourishing of human beings and all God’s creatures in the presence of God is God’s foremost concern for creation and should therefore be the central purpose of theology.

So, what’s the flourishing life?

How would you define a flourishing life? What are its elements? Does Christianity lead toward the flourishing life? Does your gospel or theology or church lead to a flourishing life?

Simply: “the good toward which humans are meant to strive” (13). The “good life” or the “true life” etc.. World religions all bring into focus the flourishing life. Thus, there are three elements in the flourishing life:

Each world religion or philosophy gives an account of life going well, life led well, and life feeling as it should.

(1) Life going well refers to the “circumstantial” dimension of the flourishing life, to the desirable circumstances of life—be they natural (like fertile, uncontaminated land), social (like a just political order or a good reputation), or personal (like health and longevity).

(2) Life led well refers to the “agential” dimension of the flourishing life, to the good conduct of life—from right thoughts of the heart and right acts to right habits and virtues.

(3) Life feeling as it should is about the “affective” dimension of the flourishing life, about states of “happiness” (contentment, joy) and empathy.

This, then, is what we mean by a vision of flourishing life: a set of explicit or implicit convictions about what it means for us to lead life well, for our life to go well, and for it to feel right, convictions that guide—or should guide—all our desires and efforts.

Is this search for a flourishing life common to humans? Yes, they say:

All human beings in all cultures, each in their own way, aspire to genuine flourishing, their own and that of those they care for. First, we are inescapably oriented toward some good—toward things, states of affairs, practices, and emotions we perceive as good. Second, we are reflective and moral beings. We want to know that the good we strive toward is in fact desirable. Finally, aware as we are of living in time, we gather our past in memory and our future in anticipation, and we want to be assured of the goodness or Tightness of our whole life.

They think the language of “chasing your dream” is a cheap substitute for the flourishing life. Pursuing the resources necessary for a flourishing life is another cheap approach: the means become the end. When it becomes taste and preference, life becomes arbitrary.

Universities are failing us.

Churches are failing us.

It’s time for theologians to lead the quest for the flourishing life.