Instead of using “legalism,” which has become a bogey word for bogey opponents for each of us, why not shift this term to “covenant path markers” so we can get a fresh start on a genuinely serious problem we all face?

Here’s what covenant path markers do (and now I begin to extrapolate from Holmen’s study): first, they quantify covenant faithfulness into behavior that can be measured and seen; second, they enable us to “judge ourselves” on whether or not we are faithful; and third, they enable us to judge others on whether or not the others are faithful.

Legalism, aka covenant path marking, is a vicious form of life: instead of living faithfully, we are judging faithfulness. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for covenant faithfulness.)

Two final comments: first, we need to admit that we are all involved in covenant parth marking. Sometimes more severely than other times; some more than others; but each of us uses various behaviors to judge ourselves and others.

Second, there are only two “theories” of the Christian life that simply cannot be “marked.” You won’t be surprised by this, but they are (1) Jesus’ use of the Jesus Creed: loving God and loving others. And, (2) Paul’s use of the category of “life in the Spirit.”

Here’s why each is “unmarkable.” Because Love is a response and a life that transcends the observable and life in the Spirit is as well. Who can say “I’ve got love down, give me a challenge” or “I’m always in the Spirit, anything else you want me to do?” These two are unmarkable in part because they are ongoing, responsive, and qualitative features of Christian existence. And they are both almost “unjudgeable”: how can we really know if someone is loving? how can we know if someone is really “living in the Spirit”? Only by converting love and Spirit into “objectified” covenant path markers, and when we do that we slip out of the embrace of love and the Spirit.

No one has summarized the “theories” of the Christian life any more succinctly than Richard Foster, in his textbook quality Streams of Living Water. He charts out six traditions, and I will look at each and how covenant path marking (aka, legalism) finds its way into each.

My prefatory remark for all of this: each of these traditions is valuable (I believe in each one) and each of them is good for us, and in saying that each can develop covenant path markers does not mean that they are to be de-valued. Nothing is further from the truth. What needs to be said, though, is this: the purpose of each is to lead us into union with God, communion with others, for the good of the world, and when that is not happening, the traditions are being misused or abused. Ultimately, this is an issue of “where our heart is” and our heart cannot be easily discerned or easily assigned. We need Spirit-led discernment to know.

The first is what he calls the Contemplative tradition, pointing to both classical and biblical examples. He uses Antony of Egypt and the Apostle John and Frank Laubach. His format is then to define the tradition (love, peace, delight, emptiness, fire, wisdom, transformation), discuss the strengths (fan the first flame, more then cerebral, prayer as primary, solitariness) and then the potential perils (separation, consuming asceticism, devalue intellectual, neglect of community). And then he suggests some practical steps for practicing the contemplative tradition: experiment, pray Scripture, practice leisurely silence).

So, how does this tradition end up with some covenant path marking?

Simply put, when any of the actions connected to the practice of contemplation are equated with or used to measure either one’s own or others’ spirituality, then it becomes covenant path marking. When I say, “She is not so spiritual because she never practices solitude” or that “I am particularly spiritual today because I have spent an hour in prayerful reading of Scripture” or “My Bible study is especially serious because we do lectio divina” then the actions are being misused. The antidote is not to stop them, but to do them aright: and to do them aright means to engage God directly, to love God, and to seek God.

Specifically, when solitude, contemplation, prayerful reading of Scripture, lectio divina, when any of these practices is used to measure spirituality for ourselves or for others, then it has become a system of covenant path marking.

Generally, we need to ask what happens as a consequence of these actions: am I becoming more loving and more holy and more compassionate or am I becoming more self-conscious or more self-congratulatory or more other-judgmental?

The purpose of contemplation is to get lost in the Wonder Who is God and to get lost in Others for the good of the world. Not just to be more “measurably spiritual.”

The holiness tradition focuses on the less-than-well known but deserving-to-be-better-known Phoebe Palmer (her biography is nearly impossible to find and prohibitively expensive), James brother of Jesus, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (whom I’m not sure I’d place in this category). Foster sees the following characteristics of the holiness tradition: not rules and regs but sustained attention to the heart, not otherworldliness but world-affirming, not consuming asceticism but bodily spirituality, not works oriented but a striving, not perfectionism but progress in purity and sanctity, not absorption into God but loving unity with God. This is worth the price of the book.

Strengths: deeper formation of the inner personality, intentional focus on the heart, hope for genuine progress, tough-minded down-to-earth practice. Potential perils: legalism, Pelagianism (mixing grace and works), perfectionism. We can train, we can invite others into the journey, and we can stumble and get up again.

The holiness tradition leads to covenant path marking whenever we use the practices of holiness — Bible reading, church attendance, separation from specific sins, rigorous attention to specific acts and attitudes, intentional emphasis upon personal sanctity or growth in holiness, questioning social justice commitments or any other side of “worldly calling” — to judge ourselves or others as “fit” or “spiritually mature.” These things, regardless of how important you wish to make them, are not the real thing — which is union with God and communion with others for the good of the world, and dare not be confused with the real thing.

Richard Foster sketches the Charismatic tradition, the third “theory” of the Christian life, by looking at St Francis, the Apostle Paul, and William Joseph Seymour whose story today has been nearly forgotten but who had a major influence on the charismatic movement in the USA. Foster sees defining characteristics in the charismata (gifts), building in love, and the latter with four characteristics: responsibility, limitation, esteeming others, and unity within diversity. The strengths include a correction of the impulse to domesticate God, rebuking our anemic practices, spiritual growth, empowerment. And its potential pitfalls include trivialization, rejecting the rational, divorcing gifts from fruit, speculative end-time scenarios.

Again, let us clarify what covenant path marking is about: it is the attempt to measure or quantify what it means to be faithful to the covenant (as we interpret it) and to use that measure in judgment of self and others. I prefer this to legalism because legalism is always bad, and easy to use, but covenant path marking enables us to look at the function of all these actions we use to judge and see that they are both good and bad, good because they can be expressions of covenant faithfulness but bad when they are used to judge others and bad when they become the goal of Christian existence.

But, there is here too a danger with covenant path marking. Whenever manifestations of the gifts — tongues, healing, words of prophecy — become the criterion of judgment of self and others, then we are dealing with covenant path marking. Whenever we judge ourselves as either “making the grade” or “not making the grade” because we do or do not manifest the gifts, or whenever we judge others on the same basis, then we have turned a means of grace and edification into an end or a manifestation of the Spirit into the Spirit itself.

How does “legalism,” or covenant path marking, make its appearance in what Foster calls the Social Justice tradition of how to configure the Christian life?

First, Foster appeals to his all-time favorite, John Woolman, to Amos, and then to Dorothy Day. You can’t find three better examples, though I would have appealed here to Jim Wallis. There are three great themes in the Social justice understanding of the Christian life: justice, mercy, and peace. Three arenas: personal, social, and institutional structures. The strengths are the call to right living, the enhancement of ecclesiology, the bridge between personal and social ethics, the concretization of what love means, a foundation for ecology, and the relevance of the impossible idea. The potential perils are that it can be an end in itself, a strident legalism, and (too often) too close of a connection with a political party/agenda. To practice the social justice tradition, Foster suggests we be open to being used by God, get the facts, become advocates for the marginalized, support relief agencies, become politically involved, write on behalf of persons, pray for the world.

How then does this become an issue for covenant path marking? Social justice becomes a covenant path marker whenever Christians identify themselves more with a political party than with Christ (which would lead Christians to unity with other Christians even when they differ politically), whenever participation in our “special cause” is used to judge our own righteousness, someone else’s righteousness or the unrighteousness of someone else, whenever the State becomes “right”, whenever a political party becomes our place of identity, whenever we see social issues overwhelming the fullness of the gospel — which is designed for the whole person and for the whole of society. Whenever evil is urbanized and systemic structures are suburbanized.

Again, this has to do with where our heart is: social justice concerns are good — after all, the Bible brings up poverty constantly and Jesus was at heart concerned with the marginalized. The issue is not the concern, but whether or not we are using those concerns for the good of others or for the advancement of our own self.

According to Foster, the Evangelical tradition of the Christian life focuses on the Word. (Don’t equate this with the current raging debate about what an “evangelical” is; Foster’s usage is broad.) He uses three examples: Augustine, Peter, and Billy Graham.

The Evangelical tradition is known for faithful proclamation of redemption and reconciliation, for the faithful preservation of the gospel, for the faithful interpretation of the gospel — and the delves here briefly into the creeds. The major strengths: call to conversion, missionary mandate, biblical fidelity, sound doctrine. The potential perils: fixate or the peripheral or non-essential, sectarianism, limitation of salvation to getting to heaven, and bibliolatry.

How does the Evangelical tradition of the Christian life develop covenant path marking? Whenever I am judged by how much I know about the Bible, or whenever I judge others for that. (Believe me, I’m a Bible teacher but…) Whenever Bible reading is more important than living properly, whenever a human is seen as nothing more than a potential convert, whenever sound doctrine destroys human relationships (be careful here for it is good to be sound but not in any way that destroys the other), whenever someone’s worth is measured by how close they are to you in your theology, whenever the gospel is reduced to getting to heaven, whenever the Church is equated with “only my own local church”, whenever the Bible is de-personalized, whenever theology is seen as more important than its goal to make us “perfect” or people who love God and love others.

For all the caveats about all these things, please give my other posts some attention. I don’t want to repeat all these all the time. But, let me add this in defense of those of us who see ourselves as Evangelicals: nothing in our concerns is bad; but what is good can be distorted to where it is no longer a good. I think that makes it clear.

The Incarnational tradition, more accurately the sacramental tradition, is Foster’s weakest chapter, partly I’m guessing because he is Quaker. At any rate, he chooses Susanna Wesley, examines briefly divine aesthetics, and then looks at Dag Hammarskjold. As for its defining parts, Foster sees it as concerned with God as manifest through material means and that the material mediates the divine. There is a religious dimension and an arena for the everyday life.

[By way of critique: nothing substantial on the Lord’s Supper; nothing on Eastern Orthodox theology of icons, which is where this is most clearly elucidated; nothing on Roman Catholic churches and the like. Nothing on Alexander Schmemann’s For the Life of the World.]

The strengths: God is with us, it roots everyday life, gives meaning to work, corrects Gnosticism, beckons us Godward, the body becomes important, and deepens our ecological sensitivities. The potential perils include idolatry and the sense of managing the divine through the material.

When does the Incarnational tradition become covenant path marking: whenever specific embodiments of the faith — say the Lord’s Supper, baptism, candles, crosses — are identified with what they are intended to reveal or manifest or make present. Whenever we judge our own spirituality on the basis of whether or not we have “done one of these things” or whenever we judge others on that basis.

Covenant path marking is here to stay because of human nature. The mystery of the Christian life is that it is about union with God, communion with others, for the good of the world — and any means or any material embodiment or anything else that is designed to lead us to that can never be as important as loving God, loving others, or living in the Spirit. We need to keep in mind that we have a tendency to confuse the ring with the beloved.

We also need to keep in mind that what we value will become a covenant path marker, revealing to us that covenant path markers are good but not the end, not the goal toward which we strive.

Finally, we need to realize that everyone of us is susceptible to this problem, so let us quit thinking that others have the problem with legalism.

David W. Congdon, ironically enough an associate editor at IVP, is attempting to revive the theology of Rudolf Bultmann for today’s theological, if not (progressive?) evangelical theological discussion. If evangelicals, one might say fairly, can find Barth suitable to historic evangelicalism perhaps also Rudolf Bultmann? Following his massive The Mission of Demythologizing: Rudolf Bultmann’s Dialectical Theology (Fortress), his new companion to Bultmann focuses on a description (and largely positive evaluation) of Bultmann’s theology.

Congdon has mastered — if that is possible — Bultmann’s theological orientations and so begins with his eschatology and then moves onto other themes: dialectic, nonobjectifiaiblity, self-understanding, kerygma, history, myth, hermeneutics, freedom and he closes with a set of reflection on how Bultmann’s sermons on Advent and Christmas shifted in emphasis as his theology shifted. After reading the book it comes as a nice set of illustrations of Bultmann’s development.

For me the highlight of the book was the interlacing of existentialism with themes like eschatology, dialectic, nonobjectifiability, self-understanding, and kerygma. A few highlights of these sections now follow, and one major one is this distinction between the kerygma or eschatology and the form of its expression (apocalyptic or affirmations of Christ):

He was able to recognize as a historian that what the early Christians hoped for proved to be mistaken, while also recognizing that the expectation itself Is, in some sense, essential to the faith. 8

In his pursuit of this deeper meaning in the New Testament, Bultmann seeks to answer the question: what truth comes to expression in primitive Christian apocalyptic that does not depend upon (and can be differentiated from) the ancient conception of the cosmos? 9

Bultmann is famous for saying that to speak of God we must speak of ourselves, but this not because he is so anthropologically grounded or narcissistic but because all genuine knowledge of God is encounter with God through God’s grace of revelation both of judgment on sin and redemption. In other words, genuine theology is dialectical (eschatology and history, transcendence and immanence, spirit and flesh, God and world – 41) and existential. The kerygma is not so much a set of lines (in spite of 1 Cor 15, 2 Tim 2:8) as an ongoing event.

One cannot thus know God “according to the flesh” but only in the Spirit through the dialectic of knowing both God and self in God’s revelation. [Clearly Condon at times is anticipating some themes in modern apocalyptic theology via Barth.] Thus,

Self-understanding is the event in which a person encounters the word of God and so discovers herself to be a sinner who has received justification by Gods grace, and who has therefore been given a new future, a new life, a new world. 59

Instead, christology in the NT “is the proclamation of the event of Christ’s coming,” and “an understanding   of the event requires not speculation but self-examination, radical consideration speculation but self-examination, radical consideration of the nature of one’s own new existence.” 69

The kerygma is a word-event, not just a set of lines that are truth. The NT is not the kerygma but bears witness to the kerygma. “In the kerygma, God addresses us directly; in theology, we speak and hear about God’s direct address.” 73. Thus, the kerygma is prelinguistic. [Congdon uses this kerygma chp to speak to Congdon’s own penchant for universalism.]

A companion like this at some point needs to give more substantive critical discussion. Congdon comes off to this professor as a Bultmannian apologist — to be honest, I was nurtured and came of age in a day when Bultmann was known for the heresy trials in Germany over his theology and for his dismissal of the historical veracity of both the Gospels as well as most things many connected with Christian orthodoxy. OK, some of that criticism and suspicion of all things Bultmannian emerged from conservative reactionaries but it is hard for me to agree with Congdon that they got it all wrong and that he is reviving a much more palatable Bultmann.

There is a noticeable minimal discussion of Bultmann’s History of the Synoptic Tradition as well as his powerful Gospel of John. And one could have used a discussion of his famous Jesus and the Word. Bultmann’s existential theology and demythologizing are at work in these works, and many today encounter Bultmann through such writings and not so much his theological, philosophical and hermeneutical writings. One wonders how they — as entire works — fit in Bultmann’s existential theology.

I would have liked more discussion of Bultmann  and National Socialism, and in my post on Konrad Hammann’s thorough biography, I wrote this:

Some capitulated to National Socialism, to racism, to German culture as a relentless machine of superiority, to technology as the future, to human life as utilitarian, economic success regardless of its implications, shutting down alternative voices, and the destruction of nature. Some turned their theology into a tool for the National Socialists, led by the “German Christians” (Deutsche Christen, and some turned their academic work into the same (Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus, Emanuel Hirsch). On this read R.P. Ericksen, Theologians under Hitler and S. Heschel, The Aryan Jesus.

Some capitulated by refusing to withstand and so became complicit. Some later confessed complicity; some didn’t.

Some resisted and died, like Bonhoeffer. Some resisted and escaped, like Karl Barth. Some were stained by sins under Hitler and then resisted and were imprisoned but confessed, like Martin Niemöller, while others were stained and survived, but never confessed, like Martin Heidegger. On philosophers under Hitler, see Hitler’s Philosophers by Yvonne Sherratt, a book I have not yet read.

Others resisted and survived. It is perhaps my ignorance of all the machinations or my familiarity of the stories of Bonhoeffer and Niemöller but I have always wondered how anyone could survive under Hitler without complicity in National Socialism. The story of Rudolf Bultmann is one such story, and Konrad Hammann’s full biographical study of the development of Bultmann’s theology is a singularly important achievement. The book is called Rudolf Bultmann: A Biography.

Hammann has an extensive study of Bultmann’s time under Hitler and I would summarize it in one word: courage. I was impressed with Bultmann’s courage. He opposed National Socialism, he did so intelligently and passionately but he never did get in trouble with Hitler, which I cannot explain. Others perhaps can though I have often wondered if he simply was not as critical as Barth and Bonhoeffer. His wife, Helene, was called in for interview but nothing turned up against her either. But there is very clear evidence that Bultmann not only resisted through the Confessing Church’s various statements but also in his writing, his lectures, his student interactions, and his personal life.

Though Lutheran and two realms in his theology of politics, which to his fault became a defaulting ecclesial non-involvement in the post World War II years when it came to such things as nuclear buildup, Bultmann knew National Socialism was evil and had to be resisted. He despised what Hitler was doing to Jews and he both supported his Jewish students (like Hans Jonas and Hannah Arendt) and did what he could to help them escape. He pleaded with his friend Martin Heidegger (from whom Bultmann curiously distanced his ideas though one suspects their ideas were interdependent) to confess but Heidegger never did. He opposed Kittel’s support of the Aryan Paragraph. He focused too much on the Aryan Paragraph for the church and not enough for the State.

The primeval history of Genesis 1-11 ends with two genealogies and an excursion to the tower of Babel (another Sunday School staple). We’ve discussed the Tower of Babel before in posts Babel in Ancient Context where John Walton’s commentaries were considered and then Babel as Ideological Critique based on J. Richard Middleton’s reading of the story.  Both Tremper Longman and Bill Arnold focus on the story as part of the repeating theme of sin, judgement, and grace in the major passages of Genesis 1-11.

The Tower of Babel (2242 BC according to Bishop Ussher) is a tale that defies a literal reading. At least today it defies a literal reading. When the world seemed “small” and confined to a bubble around one location, with with fuzzy ideas of what might (or might not) lie just outside the known … then it was possible to conceive of but one language until ca. 4200 years ago followed by diaspora populating the earth. But this simply doesn’t match the evidence. Among other things the idea of one language until just before Abraham, with the settling of Egypt after Babel, strains credulity. Although it is difficult to pinpoint the origin of language as words without artifacts leaves not evidence, written language provides enough evidence. The oldest ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs date to something like 5000 years ago, a little more recent than Sumerian cuneiform which originated something like 5500 years ago, and there is little likelihood these very early written languages represent similar spoken languages. In fact, there is some evidence that a written Chinese language may have also developed some 5000 years ago, possibly more, and this language certainly wasn’t similar to Sumerian or Egyptian. This, along with a well documented and much earlier dispersion of human population, is enough to set aside the literal reading as the global origin of languages.

The Babel story is flanked by two genealogies. The first, in chapter 10, is often referred to as the table of nations. All three of the commentaries considered here, Tremper Longman III (Genesis in the Story of God Bible Commentary), John Walton (The NIV Application Commentary Genesis), and Bill Arnold (Genesis (New Cambridge Bible Commentary)), consider the Babel story to be a chronological precursor to the table of nations. This is significant in the more conservative (i.e. literal-local) reading of John Walton as well as the reading of Bill Arnold.

The Table of Nations isn’t a genealogy in the usual sense. Although it traces populations from Noah and his sons the interest isn’t in the the fathers and sons. “The content suggests that rather than an interest in descent this chapter intends to comment on ancient perceptions of national and linguistic relationships.” (Longman, p. 141) This could be at the time of Moses if he is the author as Walton assumes, or at a somewhat later time. Walton notes:

The list of the sons of Shem, Ham, and Japeth contains seventy names, and we cannot believe for a moment that this is accidental. Seventy stands for totality and completion. More important, the concept of seventy nations is offered as the design of God.  (p. 367)

The division between the three does not represent language groups, (because, for example, Canaanite is Semitic). It should also be noticed that not all of the seventy names are individuals. A number of them clearly name people groups (see esp. 10:15-17). Others are well-known as city names (e.g., Sidon) or geographic designations (e.g., Mizraim, Tarshish, Sheba), but possibly the list considers patronymic ancestors of those places.  (p. 368)

Longman quotes from Walton’s commentary and concludes “This “genealogy” is really a primitive linguistic, political map that reflects the realities of a later time, certainly no earlier than the time of Moses.” (p. 143)  Walton suggests that the divisions between the three sons of Noah are at least partially geographical. Arnold suggests that “it may be better to think in terms of the sociopolitical position of the perceived groups: those who were seafarers (Japheth), those who were pastoral nomads (Shem), and those responsible for urban civilization (Ham).” (p. 116)

It is significant that the Canaanites cursed by Noah in 9:25 “Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers,” are singled out in the table of nations:  “And the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon, in the direction of Gerar, as far as Gaza, and in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha.” (10:19)

The fact that the geographical boundaries given here roughly correspond to later Israel’s homeland, and the fact that this land is inhabited by numerous Canaanite groups prepares the reader for significant features of the ancestral narratives of Genesis, and indeed for the Pentateuch and Joshua as well. (Arnold p. 117)

Babel. The story of Babel naturally precedes the table of nations. Here human sin results in punishment and the confusion of tongues and cultures that separates humankind. Whatever the sin was precisely, it certainly had to do with people making a name for themselves rather than obeying God. Walton suggests that “with the development of urbanization people began to envision their gods in human terms. People here no longer trying to be like God, but more insidiously, were trying to bring god down to the level of fallen humanity.” (p. 377)  It probably isn’t coincidence that urbanization plays a large role with the descendants of Ham and in the story of Babel. Israel, descended from Shem, on the other hand was identified with pastoral nomads, at least early on.  At any rate the language is confused and the peoples dispersed. The passage ends with a word play on Babel or Babylon. The name of the city was viewed by the people to be Akkadian for “gate of the gods.” The narrator or author of the story in Genesis connects it with a similar Hebrew word meaning “to confuse.” Longman suggests that “the narrator/author was fully aware that this explanation was pejorative and not the actual description of how the name came about.” (p. 150)

Perhaps as the table of nations provides a political map of relationships for the known world at the time of Moses (or later), the story of Babel is an excursus to place the confusion of peoples and tongues into theological context.

The genealogy of Shem. Following the incident at Babel the story picks up again with Shem and his descendants. It isn’t a simple repetition, but a bridge that leads from the primeval history in Genesis 2-11 to the patriarchs. Where the genealogy in the table of nations lists five sons of Shem, this genealogy takes only the middle son and follows his line to Terah and to Abraham. Like the genealogy of Seth in chapter 5 where ten generations lead to Noah and his three sons, here ten generations lead from Shem to Terah and his three sons. Longman comments:

If this genealogy is taken literally and as an exhaustive account of the line, Shem, Noah’s son, lived forty years beyond the death of Abraham. Indeed, Abraham would have been two years old when Noah died. This is not likely, though such a stilted reading of the text is supported by some. Ancient genealogies did not function like modern ones and are often constructed for literary and theological purposes rather than historical ones. This genealogy also has ten names, suggestive of literary shaping.  (p. 152)

Arnold is more definite. This is a stylized literary structure to connect Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to Noah and to Adam. In particular, this genealogy serves to conclude the primeval history before beginning the story of the patriarchs and the founding of Israel.

The next post on Genesis will look in more detail at the theology and purpose of the primeval history of Genesis 2-11 as a whole. In the process I’ll bring a new book and perspective into the mix, Walter Moberly’s The Theology of the Book of Genesis (Old Testament Theology).

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

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

Mark Tietjen serves as director of religious life and Grace Palmer Johnston Chair of Bible at Stony Brook School. His latest book, Kierkegaard: a Christian Missionary to Christians framed this interview.

The interview was conducted by David George Moore. Dave blogs at www.twocities.org.

Moore: Your title will pique the interest of those not familiar with Kierkegaard. How is he a “Christian missionary to Christians”?

Tietjen: Kierkegaard’s context is 19^th century Europe, i.e. Christendom, and thus he’s addressing an audience that would regard itself as Christian, simply by virtue of their being European. He felt strongly, however, that there was little Christianity in Christendom, hence the description of his work as missionary work. I think what Kierkegaard offers is along the lines of what any number of Christian thinkers offer when they point us closer toward the Gospel of Jesus Christ and in doing so challenge those beliefs, prejudices, behaviors, attitudes, and feelings that we take to be ‘Christian,’ but which in fact are not. And the process of discovering that is painful, but good. Reading Kierkegaard can be painful, but good.

Moore: As a young Christian growing up the 1980s the writings of Francis Schaeffer were extremely influential. I vividly recall Schaeffer’s critique of Kierkegaard’s “leap of faith.” A college professor who described Kierkegaard as the father of existentialism added another inaccurate component to my understanding of Kierkegaard. How did both of them get Kierkegaard wrong?

Tietjen: “Leap of faith” is a phrase that never appears in Kierkegaard’s published work. What critics pick up on in his use of the term leap is the idea that the most important decisions humans make in their lives are passional decisions, decisions where reason can help but is not necessarily decisive, and instead, our deepest commitments—our cares and passions—direct us. If that’s true, then we need to cultivate virtuous cares and passions, and Kierkegaard is devoted to thinking deeply on that. These critics would suggest that when it comes to faith Kierkegaard promotes a kind of irrationalism which, at the end of the day, says that to believe in God is something one does blindly, without any evidence. Kierkegaard is hardly an irrationalist. However, he is a very strong critic of rationality because he recognizes that all conceptions of rationality have some angle, some set of assumptions, that often serve to justify oneself, one’s nation, one’s ethnic group, one’s prejudices, etc. Kierkegaard is also aware that while Christianity has its own logic (Jesus is the logos, after all), to those who do not share that faith, Christianity seems irrational. That does not scare Kierkegaard, precisely because he refuses to deify and human conception of rationality.

Concerning existentialism, classical existentialism claims that humans more or less determine who they are by their choices, but Kierkegaard thinks this sort of thinking is actually despair. Kierkegaard believes humans are image-bearers of God who will all experience despair until they ‘rest transparently’ in God. He is far more Augustinian than existentialist.

Moore: On the positive side of the ledger, I’ve noticed that many “conservative” Christians now refer to Kierkegaard with great enthusiasm. What has changed the minds of many in a more favorable direction?

Tietjen: This is a good question. Perhaps one explanation is the overall increase in Christian philosophy that has occurred since the 1970s. There are quite literally hundreds of more Christian philosophers working than there were 50 or more years ago, and thus more scholars who’ve studied Kierkegaard at a high level and recognize his contributions to Christian philosophy, psychology, and theology. I also think that when popular Christian writers like Philip Yancey and Timothy Keller speak approvingly of their debt to Kierkegaard, that moves the needle in the right direction.

Moore: Over the years, I’ve led several book clubs through various classics of the Christian faith. Kierkegaard’s Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing is one of the readings. There are a number of things which have stuck with me from reading that incisive work, but I want to ask you to unpack Kierkegaard’s suspicion over the crowd or what we today call “groupthink.”

Tietjen: Simone Weil, a kind of kindred spirit of Kierkegaard’s, once bravely admitted that she could imagine getting sucked into the group energy of Nazi rally songs—that there is a kind of seduction to following the mob that lullabies one to sleep. Kierkegaard felt that Christianity was primarily a category of individuality, meaning that God created each human uniquely and relates to each human individually, and thus oftentimes our involvement in the masses, including the public and even the church, can distract us from standing before God as individuals who have obligations to God and specific callings from God. To say I’m a Christian because I’m a European (or a Southerner) is precisely to make out of faith a group identification rather than a personal relation to God.

Moore: Kierkegaard had some very pointed things to say about the clergy of his day.  As you point out, even on his deathbed he refused communion because the clergy of the State church would have to administer it. He makes Eugene Peterson’s critiques of modern pastoral professionalism look mild! How did those ministers who ended up in Kierkegaard’s spiritual crosshairs respond to him?

Tietjen: Kierkegaard’s critique of the church and its clergy was at times challenged by the clergy, and at other times simply dismissed because he was not taken seriously after a while. To this day many in Denmark don’t know what to do with Kierkegaard. He was a public agitator, and that bad taste has never gone away. On the other hand, he’s arguably one of the three most famous Danes the world has ever known, and so there’s reason to take pride in him.

Moore: Kierkegaard liked to use irony, story-telling, and even sarcastic humor to get his points across. Was his intention similar to the famous lines of Emily Dickinson where she says, “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant”? In other words, conveying the truth via direct communication may not always be the most effective.

Tietjen: Telling someone who identifies as a Christian that his or her life does not reflect Christ or Christianity is a hard sell and likely to get you in trouble. So Kierkegaard tries to ‘deceive into the truth,’ to use his phrase (one he attributes to Socrates). Beyond that, however, he felt like Christianity is more than affirming true doctrine, but rather it contains truth (or the Truth) to which one must personally relate. For example, to be a Christian is not to believe in the doctrine of sin, but to recognize in one’s heart, mind, and actions—“I am a sinner.” But the best way to communicate this, Kierkegaard felt, was not simply through saying as much, but through irony, through humor, through characters, etc.

Moore: What kind of person would derive the most benefit from reading your book? What would you hope that type of person would learn from your book?

Tietjen: I can think of a number of different kinds of people who might benefit from the book, but I imagine the person in need of a spiritual jolt or in need of encouragement in faith might benefit from the book. The book covers a lot of ground—who Jesus is, what it means to be human, what a life of Christian love looks like, and how we’re to think about ourselves as witnesses of faith. Thus, it is geared toward those inclined toward self-examination, those interested in thinking about their faith, but also those wondering what Christian faith means for me beyond beliefs—in the realm of religious emotions, Christian action, and care for those around me.

Sermon-makers as Person-makers, by John Frye

I have a 1961 paperback edition of A Treasury of Prayer by E. M. Bounds that I now keep together with rubber bands. Like A. W. Tozer’s writings, there is a depth to this little compendium on prayer that I had no category to appreciate as a young believer in Christ. It’s a book you have to grow into. If read wrongly, it may feel hyper-legalistic and burdensome. If read with a humble and teachable spirit, the reader is passionately informed, invigorated, and compelled to pray. Even as I skimmed through it again for this post, I felt the great necessity and weighty privilege of prayer as the core asset for life and ministry. Now to the subject at hand.

Bounds wrote in a time prior to gender sensitivities and, without intending to slight our female pastors, I will quote him as he wrote. Just substitute “person” for “man.” Bounds observes, “It takes twenty years to make a sermon, because it takes 20 years to make a man. The true sermon is a thing of life. The sermon grows because the man grows. The sermon is forceful because the man is forceful. The sermon is holy because the man is holy. … The sermon cannot rise in its life-giving force above the man. Dead men give dead sermons, and dead sermons kill. Everything depends on the character of the preacher” (90 emphasis added). By “forceful” Bounds means effective, i.e., the sermon achieves its purpose.

As long as we view sermon-making as biblically informed word-smithing, we will venture into lifeless preaching. Sermon-makers, Bounds suggests, are men-makers. The ultimate grade on our sermons will be given at last by the Spirit when we see the lives transformed by our messages. Affirmation of our clever “big ideas,” our fancy alliterations, our humorous illustrations, and our action-oriented applications will be rendered void. None of those aspects are wrong; they are simply insufficient in themselves to form Christ in others.

You’ve heard the story of the preacher and his wife on the way home in the car. The guy was taken with himself and his tremendous preaching that day. “You know, honey, there just aren’t many great preachers left in this world,” he said with a sigh of satisfaction. She calmly replied, “Yeah, and in this world there is one less than you think.” I have a note framed and posted in my office. It was written by my youngest daughter when she was about seven years old. In child-like scribbling she wrote, “Dad, your sermon was somewhat interesting; but you are very interesting. I love you. Shamar.” I’ll take that any day over an A in homiletics class.

How can you maintain a life that promotes transformative preaching? I suggest three life disciplines. First, alway, always be admitting and bringing to God those areas of your life that need the transforming touch of the Spirit. You have not arrived at total Christ-like character. We sin; we gossip; we whine; we envy; we misuse money, time; we disbelieve God. Dangerously, we know far more about Christian living than we actually live. Unless we live in the spirit of the very first beatitude, we short-change our preaching. While not denying the economic aspect of “poor in spirit,” we know that there is to be an on-going spiritual dependence on God for our redemption. We are saved and being saved. Preachers have to feel this reality or they will come off sounding like those who have arrived rather than as companions on the way.

Second, mine the text at hand for how it speaks to your life. Certainly you’re preaching to the congregation, yet your own life must be addressed by the Word as well. This helps reinforce the first discipline of remaining poverty-stricken in spirit. Some of the most effective communicators I’ve heard were not ashamed to say that the Spirit was working specifically in their lives. This vulnerability does not detract from leadership; it enhances it.

Third, as I hear E. M. Bounds echoing in my ears, pray, pray, pray. Place all your study, your word-smithing, your outline, your expectations before the Lord. “Take all this, Lord, and use it how you will. Spirit, set my own heart on fire. Help me to once again remember that it is only required of your servants to be found faithful.” Then, my sisters and brothers, preach like your very life is at stake. It is.

Recently, Kevin DeYoung, a pastor, author and leader in The Gospel Coalition, posted at TGC’s site on the 9 marks of healthy biblical complementarianism, and today I will respond to his points in italics  — left in their original context and you can go to the link to see the original post and the comments there. I found his post in tone entirely acceptable but theologically inadequate. You can read his piece consecutively below by ignoring my italicized responses.

Kevin DeYoung at TGC

In the conservative evangelical circles I mainly inhabit, there is almost no controversy about whether the Bible allows for women to be ordained as pastors and elders. The people I talk to and listen to are firmly convinced complementarians. That is, they (we) believe that God created men and women equal in worth and dignity but with different roles in the home and in the church. At least very least, this means the office of pastor or elder is to be filled by qualified men. The core of complementarianism is not up for discussion.

DeYoung’s circles could be improved with some expansion to interact with those with other thoughts and points of view. In his understanding of complementarianism it is unjust to represent complementarianism in terms of only worth and roles, for those roles are shaped by hierarchy in those same circles. It is not hard to argue that hierarchy determines roles. Complementarianism, as understood by complementarians, entails patriarchy and hierarchy, not just worth and roles.

To say the “office” is to be “filled” by “qualified men” is to extrapolate from but not state what is in the Bible. The Bible never ever — not once — says only males can be pastors and never says only males can be elders (bishops, too, I assume). The elder list assumes they are males; that is not the same as teaching it. It also assumes deacons are males but Phoebe, a woman, is a deacon. Reverse the logic and one could say women could be elders/bishops.

How we talk about complementarianism is.

Agreed.

And how we practice complementarianism too.

I agree even more so.

Is the problem that we lack courage or that we are missing compassion? Have we gotten too soft? Or have we gotten too restrictive? Does complementarianism need a re-branding, a reformation, a revival, or a retrieval?

The conversations can be pointed, the rhetoric heated. And yet, the fact that there is an intra-complementarian discussion taking place is a sign of the relative success of the movement. The complementarian camp is large enough to contain a fairly disparate group of people and personalities. The presence of disagreements and the need for definitions should come as no surprise. Sharpening is not a problem, so long as we are not unnecessarily sharp with each other.

Let’s hear a description of these debates. 

So what does a health[y] complementarianism look like? I certainly don’t have the last work on the subject. But here are nine important marks.

1. Creation not accommodation. The differences between men and women are rooted in divine design. This is clear from 1 Timothy 2 and from Genesis 1-2. Complementarianism is not about Paul accommodating to a patriarchal first century culture, let alone about us accommodating the expectations of our cultures inside or outside the church. God has something to say about manhood and womanhood. And what God has to say is rooted in what he designed.

Evidently it is “clear” to him and others that Gen 1-2, where not one word is said along this line and themes of even equality are affirmed, teaches a “difference” that pertains to roles in leadership, and there is absolutely no consensus on 1 Tim 2 in spite of what he says. It is not fair to the many fronts of the discussion to say “clear” about anything in 1 Tim 2.

Noticeably absent here is the most significant text in the Bible about manhood and womanhood — the Song of Solomon.

2. Function not simply ordination. The first point may seem obvious, like Complementarianism 101, but it’s an important foundation for this second point. If men and women are different by creational design, then we can’t simply quarantine “ordination” and say that manhood and womanhood have no bearing on church ministry or church roles so long as the pastors and elders are men. The issue is not mainly titles or labels or the laying on of hands. The issue is about function. To be sure, complementarians may not agree on where to draw all the lines concerning home groups and Sunday school classes and public worship, but as a starting place for these discussions we have to remember we are talking about the flourishing of divine design, not adhering to a set of narrow and seemingly arbitrary rules.

DeYoung’s point is that we cannot get to ordination until we know the function of men and the function of women. He contends those functions are shaped by divine design and seen in Gen 1-2 and in 1 Tim 2. This seems reasonable to me, but one has to establish these functions on the basis of exegesis, not assertion. What “function” does he have in mind? It seems it means men lead and women don’t. That’s not in Gen 1-2. 

Ordination is not taught anywhere in the Bible, at least as I understand ordination. What he must mean is that women are not called by God into teaching ministries — which flatly disagrees with the Bible. Priscilla and Junia and Huldah. Or he means they cannot lead — which flatly contradicts what the Bible says. Deborah is all that needs to be said. DeYoung fails here to embrace the sufficient examples of women in the Bible who speak God’s word to the nation as prophets and to women like Deborah and Huldah, Priscilla and Junia. He reads Gen 1-2 and 1 Tim 2 in a way, then, that seems to deny other parts of the Bible. 

3. Warmly embraced not quickly checked off. There’s a difference between affirming complementarianism as an act of intellectual throat clearing—“Look, I don’t think women should be pastors either, but…”—and joyfully affirming the vision as good and beautiful and best.

Yes there is. This needs to be done far more than it is. Where was this warmth with Mahaney and Ruth Tucker?

4. Convictional not merely traditional. There’s also a difference between a thoughtful complementarianism based on the exegesis and application of Scripture and a clumsy complementarianism that is little more than the default position of an overly prescriptive cultural traditionalism.

Examples. Of course this true. Straw man. Who thinks it is the “default position of an overly prescriptive cultural traditionalism”?

5. Tender not triumphalistic. No doubt, sometimes the troops need to be rallied. In the sexual insanity of our day, the call to courage is surely appropriate. But we need to realize that all kinds of people can be listening in as we talk about biblical manhood and womanhood. Some of those listening are wavering and some are wolves, but some are hurt and some resonate with broken hearts more than with raised banners. We need to be on guard against rhetoric that is all caps all the time. Let us be persuaders, not just pugilists.

More of this, more of this.

6. Principial not personal. It’s human nature: we personalize when we listen and universalize when we speak. Because we’ve gone toe to toe with liberals, we think battle mode is the way to go, always. Or because we’ve had a bad pastor or a brutish boyfriend, we are always slamming the complementarianism we say we believe in. Don’t size up the whole complementarian universe based on a couple of your most painful experiences.

Yes it is principial, and the principials are taught in the Bible, and we disagree at the deepest level here. Genesis 1-2, where is Song of Solomon, where is sacrificial love for the other in Eph 5, where is mutual submission/service? 

Yet, the personal is never divorce-able from the principial. When they are it becomes ideology. God revealed himself in his Son, who is very personal and not just principial.

7. Bible and theology affirming not wife and motherhood belittling. We want the women in our churches to read the Bible, study the Bible, and help others understand the Bible. I love that the women at URC are eager to go deep, get good theology, and challenge their hearts and minds. Yes and Amen to women who study the Scriptures. Go ahead and talk about Deuteronomy as well as diapers. And yet, let’s not ridicule the women for talking about diapers! For most women, at some point in their lives, and often for most of their lives, their identity (after being a child of God created in God’s image) will be bound up in being a wife and especially a mother. Moving deeper into the word does not mean moving away from Titus 2.

Again, why these passages and not others?

And let’s not stereotype women into “diapers.” The fathers I know all changed diapers. I spoke this weekend in Austin TX with a woman who has three PhDs — Deuteronomy, diapors, and doctorates. Speaking of the use of “diapers” here… he goes on to urge complementarians to do otherwise:

8. Careful with words not careless. We all use labels. It’s hard to speak of our immeasurably complicated world without them. But if we use negative sounding isms, let’s explain what we mean by them. Let’s not casually label others as “feminist,” “liberal,” “patriarchal,” or “hierarchical,” unless the situation clearly calls for it and we make clear what we mean. A church that has women read the sermon text (a practice I’m not in favor of) is not automatically wed to the spirit of the age, nor is a church which only allows men to teach classes and lead small groups necessarily oppressive and Neanderthal.

Yes. I agree on terms. But these terms are not simply labels; these are often accurate descriptors and DeYoung uses one thoughtfully the whole time through: complementarian. Implying that those on the other side are not complementarian. 

One more: “A church that has women read the sermon text (a practice I’m not in favor of) ..” This must refer to the public reading of Scripture, and he says he’s not in favor of  women reading the Bible in public — and surely he means in Sunday morning worship services. In the Bible women could not just read the Bible they could be prophets — which means they uttered the very word of God in its first occasion; I have a hard time thinking a woman should not read Mary’s song. 

9. Leaning against the culture instead of into the culture. The core convictions of complementarianism will not magically seep into our children or into our churches. The cultural breeze is blowing too stiffly against us. Biblical manhood and womanhood must be taught as well as caught. When it comes to the goodness of God’s divine design for men and women, unless we are pushing forward against the forces of sports and media and politics and business and entertainment, we will end up drifting in wrong direction.

I find this to be a case of what the classical rhetoricians call “insinuatio” — insinuating that those of the mutualist or egalitarian are leaning “into” culture when fantastic arguments have shown that complementarianism is 1950s white suburban American ideology. 

I remember years ago hearing a pastor describe his position on homosexuality as theologically conservative and socially progressive. I could tell by the way he was speaking that everything in him was leaning with the wind. He was holding on to orthodoxy by a thin string. So I wasn’t surprised a few years later when he announced the he had changed his mind on homosexuality and now saw nothing wrong with same-sex sexual relationships. In the same way, we must be careful that our complementarianism is deep, thoughtful, rooted, biblical, and utterly at home with being despised, misunderstood, and counter-cultural. Faithfulness does not mean making as many enemies as possible, but it does mean that for the sake of the good, the true, and the beautiful, we are fine with facing opposition when it is impossible to avoid.

Now some more questions:

How can he talk about the relationship of men and women and completely ignore Song of Solomon? Why do complementarians do this so often? 

How can he talk about men and women, from the family into church, and not talk about the most important word in the entire discussion: love? 

Why is there in this such a concentration on authority lines and roles? Is that not the language game of complementarians? Where is the “blessed alliance” language of Carolyn and Frank James? Womanhood is about ezer-hood, the strong warrior-hood of the woman with the man who go to war against evil with one another.

Why is there nothing here about the Spirit of God and gifts and God’s enablement and — yes — grace, for that is what God does and God gives: grace prompts “gifts” (charis prompts charismata)? Church service teaching and church leading come from God’s Spirit enabling people. Not a word. 

Now my biggest problem with the entire piece: Isn’t Jesus the Lord of the church, the crucified Lord the head of the church? Why is there no christological focus in this piece?

So, no christology, no pneumatology and a whole lot of manhood. Sounds like this piece has not only leaned into culture, it has lost his way in culture. The culture of the 1950s, suburban, white.

And no eschatology: where is the kingdom of God here? the incursion of God’s reign in Christ, anticipating in the now the kingdom of God, anticipating the visions of Rev 21-22 and Gal 3:28 and Col 3:11?

Kevin Giles, an Australian, has served as an Anglican parish minister for over forty years. He has been publishing on the substantial equality of the sexes since 1975 and is a foundation member of CBE International. He holds a doctorate in New Testament studies and has published books on the church, church health, ministry in the apostolic age, the Book of Acts, gender equality and the Trinity, besides numerous scholarly and popular articles.

This is part one, by Kevin Giles

Complementarians are absolutely convinced that what they teach on the man-woman relationship is what the Bible teaches. To reject their teaching is to reject the Bible, and because the Bible is literally God’s words, to reject that teaching is to disobey God himself. After giving a lecture outlining CBE’s position, one Sydney theologian told me publicly, “You reject what Scripture plainly teaches. Those who disobey God go to hell.”

When faced with such weighty opposition, it is helpful to note that we find exactly the same dogmatic, vehement opinion voiced by the best of Reformed theologians in support of slavery in the 19th century and Apartheid in the 20th century. They too appealed to the Bible with enormous confidence, claiming that it unambiguously supported slavery and Apartheid.

However today, virtually all evangelicals believe they were mistaken in their understanding of the Bible, that the Bible condemns slavery and Apartheid, and that these things are not pleasing to God!

In Part 1 of this series, we will examine the biblical case for slavery. In Part 2, we will explore the biblical case for Apartheid and compare the complementarian position.

Slavery

In the 19th century, the best Reformed theologians in America gave their able minds to perfecting a “biblical theology” in support of slavery. They defiantly set themselves against the human liberation abolition represented. Those who made the greatest contribution in support of slavery were the best evangelical and Reformed theologians and scholars of the day.

The Biblical Case in Summary

Slavery Established

“The curse on Ham” (Gen. 9:20-27) was thought to be the divinely-given basis for slavery.[1] The Genesis text tells us that when Noah woke from a drunken stupor to discover one of his sons, Ham, had seen him naked, he cursed him saying, “a slave of slaves shall you be to your brothers” (Gen 9:25). Ham was taken as the father of the African race, Shem the father of the Semites, and Japheth the father of the white race.

Slavery Practiced

The fact that all the patriarchs had slaves was judged as greatly significant. Abraham, “the friend of God” and “the father of the faithful,” brought slaves from Haran (Gen. 12:50), armed slaves born in his own house (Gen. 14:14), included them in his property list (Gen.12:16, 24:35-36), and willed them to his son Isaac (Gen. 26:13-14). What is more, Scripture says “God blessed Abraham” by multiplying his slaves (Gen. 24:35).

In Abraham’s household, Sarah was set over the slave, Hagar. The angel tells her, “return to your mistress and submit to her” (Gen. 16:9).[2] Joshua took slaves (Josh. 9:23), as did David (2 Sam. 8:2, 6) and Solomon (1 Kings 9:20-21). Likewise, Job, whom the Bible calls “blameless and upright,” was “a great slaveholder.”[3]

If these godly men held servants in bondage, it was impossible to consider slave-holding a sin. To argue otherwise was the sin. A.B. Bledsoe said the “sin of appalling magnitude” was not slave-holding but the claim by the abolitionists that slave-holding was a sin. To suggest such a thing was “an aggravated crime against God.”[4]

Slavery Sanctioned and Regulated By the Moral Law

The fact that slavery is twice mentioned in the Ten Commandments (the 4th and 10th) was thought to reveal the mind of God. The ceremonial law, they agreed, was temporary, but not the moral law. They said that the existence of this legislation indicated that God approved of slavery. The sanctioning of slavery in the law was a fundamental element of the biblical case for slavery.

Proponents of slavery argued that the specific apostolic commands to slaves to accept their lot in life were not simply practical advice to slaves living in the first century, but that they were timeless, transcultural directives predicated on the moral law.

Slavery Accepted By Jesus

The Gospels do not record a single word by Jesus that could be read to explicitly endorse slavery, a point the abolitionists were quick to note. But his silence, rather than being a criticism of slavery, the southern evangelicals argued, showed that he approved of slavery. Thornton Stringfellow sums up the case thus:

I affirm then, first (and no man denies) that Jesus has not abolished slavery by prohibitory command: and second, I affirm, he has introduced no new moral principle which can work its destruction, under the Gospel dispensation: and the principle relied on for this purposes is a fundamental principle of the Mosaic law, under which slavery was instituted by Jehovah himself.[5]

Slavery is Endorsed By the Apostles

If the Gospels do not say anything explicit about slavery, it is different in the epistles. In no less than seven passages, the apostles demand that slaves accept their lot in life, often adding that masters should treat their slaves kindly (1 Cor. 7:20-21, Eph. 6:5-9, Col. 3:22-25, 1 Tim. 6:1-4, Tit. 2:9-10, Phm. 10-18, 1 Peter 2:18-19). Evangelicals who felt that their conscience was bound by the letter of Scripture truly believed that the apostles endorsed slavery.

In most instances, the instructions to slaves were given in parallel to instructions to wives to be subordinate and children to be obedient. They reasoned that rejecting the comments about slavery would call into question the authority of husbands and parents.

Slaves were to be subservient and content with their lot because this was how they were to serve Christ (Eph. 6:5, Col 3:22), honor God (1 Tim. 6:1, Tit 2:9), and learn the Christian virtue of suffering (1 Peter 2:18).

White preachers sought to impress on their slaves that if they wanted to be saved, they needed to obey God’s commands. Not to be submissive and accept their lot in life could lead them to hell. To disagree with what Scripture so plainly taught was not to disobey the preacher, but God himself. No wonder the vast majority of slaves internalized and owned their slave status. Slaves themselves even gave such sermons.

To Sum Up

The force of this cumulative argument for slavery, based primarily on biblical exegesis, is impressive. Those who propounded this “biblical theology” thought it irrefutable.

In 1835, the Presbyterian Synod of West Virginia fiercely assailed the case for abolition, calling it “a dogma” contrary “to the clearest authority of the word of God.”[6] In 1845, the Old School Presbyterian Assembly decreed that slavery is based on “some of the plainest declarations of the Word of God.”[7] Charles Hodge wrote, “if the present course of the abolitionists is right, then the course of Christ and the apostles was wrong.” To call slavery sinful, he added, was “a direct impeachment of the Word of God.”[8]

Southern evangelicals, steeped in Reformed theology and committed to the authority of Scripture, were totally convinced that the Bible endorsed both the practice and the institution of slavery. What we must admit is that their “biblical” case for slavery was impressive. They had far more in Scripture to build their “biblical” case for slavery than do “complementarians” today in their case for the permanent subordination of women.

In Part 2, we will more closely examine the parallels between the complementarian case for female subordination and the historical defense of slavery and Apartheid.

Notes

[1] See further on this text, L. R. Bradley, “The Curse of Canaan and the American Negro,” CTM, 42/2, 1971, 100-110; G. P. Robertson, “Current Questions Concerning the Curse of Ham (Gen. 9:20-27)”, JETS, 41/2, 1998, 177-188: R. Hood, Begrimed and Black: Christian Traditions on Blacks and Blackness, Minneapolis, Fortress, 1994, 129-130, 155-163.
[2] See A. B.  Bledsoe, “Liberty and Slavery,” in Cotton is King and Pro-Slavery Arguments, 338-340; T. Stringfellow, “The Bible Argument: or Slavery in the Light of Divine Revelation,” in Cotton is King, 464-472, or in more detail, J. H. Hopkins, A Scriptural, Ecclesiastical, and Historical View of Slavery, from the Days of the Patriarch Abraham to the Nineteenth Century, New York, W. J. Moses, 1864, 76ff.
[3] See Stringfellow, Cotton is King and Pro-Slavery Arguments, 470-471. He refers to Job 1:15-17, 3:19, 4:18, 7:2, 31:13, 42:8 etc where Job speaks of his slaves.
[4] Cotton is King, 340.
[5] Cotton is King, 480.
[6] H. Shelton Smith, In His Image, 79.
[7] Quoted in J. Murray, Principles of Conduct, 260.
[8] Cotton is King, 849.

Jason Micheli is a United Methodist pastor in DC who blogs at www.tamedcynic.org

I’ve often thought that if John Wesley had been a Roman Catholic priest rather than an Anglican one he would have found a less disruptive outlet for his grace-centric revolution. Rather than taking steps that led inexorably to a rupture with the Church of England and to the creation of a distinct denomination, he might’ve simply initiated his own monastic order within the mother Church like Francis and Benedict did before him.

Brian Zahnd, the sometime author and full-time pastor at Word of Life Church, has been a frequent voice in my earbuds for several years now. I’ve come to look forward to the time I can spend running along the Mt. Vernon Parkway or working out at Gold’s Gym with theology- most of which I share- proclaimed to me in the urgent patterns of a bible church preacher’s delivery. Whenever I listen to Brian Zahnd, he strikes me as a leader much like John Wesley, a fomenter who in another era might as easily have started a new holiness order where, in pursuing God above all else, he, almost by accident, changed the world. Like Wesley or Martin Luther, Zahnd exhibits a contemplative’s restless thirst for God’s presence and present guidance and, as frenetically as Wesley, he brings a reformer’s zeal and a prophet’s summons to Christ’s Church of this time and place.

I read Brian Zahnd’s latest book, Water to Wine: Some of My Story, on a plane at the beginning of Holy Week. Water to Wine narrates the theological crisis that visited him halfway through life and over 20 years into what appeared to any outsider as a successful ministry. In the 1990’s Word of Life Church, which Zahnd planted as a teenager, was one of the largest and fastest-growing churches in the United States. In 2004, says Zahnd, the shallow, ‘cotton-candy’ Christianity he’d been preaching and peddling for decades could take him no further. Zahnd takes pains to point out that his was a crisis not of faith generally but of this particular sort of faith, so pervasive in the remaining edifice of Christendom. He came to doubt not Jesus but his brand of Christianity’s ability to mediate Jesus to him and others.

The Cana metaphor of Zahnd’s book is rich and instructive of his abilities as a writer and preacher. Taking a seemingly superfluous scene in John’s Gospel, Zahnd distills Jesus’ inaugural miracle into an image for his journey- and the congregation that accompanied him- from a weak vintage of faith to something older, more robust and bursting with the bouquet that is the diversity of the fuller Christian tradition. As Zahnd writes: “I was disenchanted by a paper-thin Christianity propped up cheap certitude. I was yearning for something deeper, richer, fuller.”

Zahnd narrates how, in response to his crisis, he undertook a 21 day regimen of prayer and fasting. Like I said, he has a mystic’s intensity. At the end of the fast, still unsure where this journey should head, he prayed for God to reveal to him what he should read, and, echoing St. Augustine who was told to ‘take and read,’ Zahnd says his wife either fortuitously or miraculously suggested he read Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy. As valuable to Zahnd as Willard’s reappraisal of the meaning of discipleship in the Kingdom were the writers and theologians to whom Willard’s work introduced him, thinkers as diverse as Stanley Hauerwas, David Bentley Hart, Karl Barth, Scot McKnight, and Maximus the Confessor. While I know Brian Zahnd only from my earbuds, thanks to Dallas Willard and the happy oddness of God’s Church, I can say Brian and I share the same friends.

Searching for a way forward to implement this stirring in him into the life of his congregation, Zahnd once again prayed for illumination and, in response, received what he calls the Five Words: Cross, Mystery, Eclectic, Community, and Revolution. These Five Words have become the values that guide Zahnd’s church a dozen years later and how he summarizes them in Water to Wine demonstrate how far a journey he was leading them from their megachurch, Word-Faith movement origins. Under ‘Cross,’ Zahnd turns Girardian scapegoat theory into practical, congregational theology, preaching that the cross is not what requires in order to forgive us our sin but the cross is what God endures while forgiving us in our sin.

Under ‘Eclectic,’ Zahnd describes how his spiritual awakening served as a passport for him to travel the world, discovering and mining the riches of Christianity’s global tradition, new flavors to incorporate into the vintage of faith God was supplying him. He goes on later in Water to Wine to argue how the Body of Christ needs all of these distinct emphases and flavors to be complete. He goes so far as to suggest that church leaders, over the course of a worship year, should make effort to expose their congregation to the Eastern Church’s focus on the incarnation, Calvinism’s emphasis on God’s sovereignty, Lutheranism’s esteeming of justification, and Catholicism’s centrality of the suffering Christ. Rather than either/or denominational rivalries, Zahnd argues that all the riches of the faith are needed for Christians to journey beyond Cana. Thus Word of Life Church is today a non-denominational church where icons are valued, the eucharist is central, and NT Wright’s take on Paul is preached in the patois of a Pentecostal preacher.

In this avowal of eclecticism Zahnd especially reminds me of John Wesley. The early Methodists’ stress on the movement of God’s grace, nurturing believers into greater holiness and towards theosis, the perfection of love in God, owed in large measure to John Wesley jumping over the reformers to recover the teachings of the ancient, eastern Church Fathers. Today, in my own Methodist tribe, we’ve turned Wesley’s generous method into another distinct institution that celebrates its own particular tradition. Reading Water to Wine, I wondered if Zahnd’s deliberate eclecticism, embracing the gifts of the entire faith, places him closer to the spirit of Wesley than my own denomination.

Not only does Zahnd agonize in prayer and fasting like a mystic, he dreams like the patriarchs of scripture. In Water to Wine he describes three dreams in which God revealed a further step along his theological journey, including a dream where Zahnd goes shoe-shopping in Zurich with the late Swiss theologian, Karl Barth. Zahnd takes the dream to mean that God encourages him to try on the different shoes available in the living tradition of the Christian faith.

This dream of shoe-shopping with Karl Barth piqued my interest, for, as it happened, this Holy Week I had returned to Karl Barth’s Dogmatics whilst reading Water to Wine. Hearing of Zahnd’s dream I wondered, for the first time, how Barth, on whom I cut my theological teeth, might respond to Zahnd, the preacher most often in my head while I exercise.

No doubt Barth would approve heartily of Zahnd’s emphatic insistence that ours is a God who speaks. In the present. For Barth and Zahnd, the God of Israel is not the moribund god of modernity but a Living God, a Risen One, who reveals himself. On the loquaciousness of this God, I expect Barth would fist bump Zahnd against the settled nature of so much Christianity in the West. Indeed I suspect both share more in common than either do with my own Methodist, mainline tribe where God is most often either a character in an ancient text, from whom we can by our own light and volition derive practicable, helpful principles for daily living or is the object of our own subjective, emotional feelings. In neither case is God a living, active subject of verbs that work on, move on, and sometimes include you and me.

On the talkativeness of God, I think Karl Barth would commend Brian Zahnd for retrieving wine where so many Christians are sated by the water of mission trip cry nights and 3-point sermonic slides.

Still, reading some of Zahnd’s story I couldn’t help wonder how Karl Barth would respond to the quote most often attributed to Brian Zahnd, and truly it’s a frame of reference, a precis, for all of Zahnd’s theology. I’m not judging. I’ve cribbed from it myself in plenty of posts and preachments:

“God is like Jesus.
God has always been like Jesus.
There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus.
We have not always known what God is like—
But now we do.”

On the one hand, I’d wager that Karl Barth would find much to affirm in this slight but bold assertion. Barth, I’m sure, would raise his pipe or brandy in approval at the conviction that God is revealed most decisively in Jesus Christ, that in Jesus we discover all of God there is find. Jesus Christ, as Barth says, is the one Word God speaks. Even on Zahnd’s suggestion that God has always been like Jesus Barth would concur, for Barth went further than Zahnd, positing that the very ontological nature of God was/is determined by the incarnation such that Barth could speak of the ‘humanity of God’ and argue, accordingly, that Jesus Christ was the only sacrament of God, the absolutely singular visible, material sign of God.

On the other hand, I suspect Barth pushback that Zahnd’s thesis statement is not sufficiently dialectical. Barth would caution Zahnd against any easy or obvious correspondence between God the Father and Jesus, God made flesh. Perhaps, the word ‘obvious’ is most important in reflecting upon the correlation between the Father and the Son.

For Karl Barth, our ability as (sinful) creatures to apprehend or know God is not available by any innate aptitude in human nature nor is derived from anything in the created world. Quite the opposite, our ability to know God is always- always and everywhere, as we say at the Table- a gift of God. This isn’t only a past gift given, as in the incarnation happened 2,000 years ago, but it’s always a present and future gift. We literally cannot know God apart from God revealing himself. Any God discovered apart from present revelation is a god not God and belongs to what Barth derides with a prophet’s anger as ‘religion.’

Because knowledge of God depends upon present, ongoing revelation by God, belief in the incarnation for Barth is not as simple as supposing that “God is like Jesus.” For Barth, incarnation names not the obvious 1-1 correspondence between the Father and the Son but the mystery that God is both unveiled and veiled in Jesus Christ. Even in the act of revealing himself most decisively in Jesus Christ, Barth says, God simultaneously conceals himself.

While affirming the identification of Jesus with God all the way down- the humanity of God, as Barth puts it, we can’t say that there is no God to be known behind the Jesus of the Gospels because, as Christ, God was never self-evidently God. As Jesus, God was never in any obvious way, to any one anticipating his advent, the Messiah. And God still is today this God-for-us; therefore, God comes to us yet in the selfsame counterintuitive, revealed-but-concealed ways. God was always veiled in Jesus and, as Will Willimon admonishes, we ought not tear away this veil in our preaching or theologizing lest we imply there’s any way to approach this God other than by God’s gracious gesture towards us. Even in the Gospel scripture itself, says Barth, we can only know this God who comes to us as Jesus not by the text itself by the present day proclamation of it, and then only if such preaching is ‘conceived by the Holy Spirit.’

I suspect Barth would rebut Zahnd’s summary statement that “God is like Jesus.” Such a clear equation obscures how, for Barth, the unveiling but veiling of God in Christ is the revelation we call incarnation. God is absolutely vulnerable before us in the incarnation; God’s absolute otherness, as in the burning bush, remains. For Barth, the pattern of revelation revealed in the passion abides today. God’s unveiled yes to us in the incarnation is at the same time God’s no. As Barth says: ‘The Yes itself means a No, that in the very closeness to God our distance from him is disclosed.’ Barth’s dialectic of veiled/unveiled secures a continuity to the Old Testament’s depiction of God that I think Zahnd’s thesis statement at best elides and at worst supersedes but also I believe it allows a place, where Zahnd doesn’t, for those moments in the Gospels when Jesus comes across more like the angry God of Hosea than we like to countenance.

The very point at which I think Barth and Zahnd would agree provides their point of departure: God speaks still. For Barth, this means that revelation is always a gift. It’s always God’s act. As in the incarnation, God’s revelation remains opaque to us, unveiled but veiled still, far off from our expectations. Only by grace do we apprehend. What held true at Calvary holds true today, even in revelation: God comes to us but, as the spiritual sings, ‘we didn’t- we don’t- know who you was.’

Knowing God is like Jesus, we still don’t know who God is.

It has to be that way, Barth might say to Brian.

Otherwise, we no longer require God to know God.

Many of the most interesting topics at the interface science and the Christian faith fall in the realm of neuroscience, sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. These are fields, it should be noted, that are in flux and undergoing rapid development. Much of the literature, especially the literature written for a popular audience reflects the inconsistencies of this rapid change. Chapter 3 of Matthew Nelson Hill’s new book Evolution and Holiness: Sociobiology, Altruism, and the Quest for Weslyan Perfection digs into the relationship between sociobiology and altruism.

The title to this post plays off of a popular one-line summary of human nature. Of course, we all know there must be more to being human that simply what we consume. Likewise, there is more to being human than a string of nucleotide bases transcribed at the appropriate time and place into proteins.  We are more than what we eat and more than the information content of our genome. We don’t exist to eat and we don’t exist as bags of replicating genes. Sometimes this gets lost in the rhetoric of evolutionary biology.

Hill shapes chapter 3 around three critiques of sociobiological explanations of altruism (p. 63):

1. Sociobiological explanations of altruism alone do not completely explain the phenomenon of human altruism. Rather the role of culture and its obvious influence on learned human behavior point to the reality that we are not merely the products of our genes.
2. Sociobiologists often invoke problematic language when explaining altruism. This type of rhetoric exposes inconsistencies.
3. There is an inability of sociobiologists to explain altruistic behavior without resorting to reductionism.  The main problem with such oversimplification is that sociobiologists do not see the whole human person.

Hill suggests that the questions concerning nature and nurture are inherently reductionistic and therein lies a problem. I found the discussion in this chapter a little hard to follow at times, and Hill didn’t entirely convince me of this points, but in large part this reflects the muddle of sociobiology in popular presentation. There is no doubt that we are bombarded with oversimplifications, often reductionist oversimplifications. And problematic language abounds. But a true critique of sociobiological explanations of altruistic behavior needs to dig beneath these surface trappings and attack the core of the problem. The only real issue is metaphysical (ontological) naturalism.

But first Hill’s points.

Biological explanations. If sociobiology is limited to genetic explanations, the merely “biological” without considering culture and accumulated knowledge, the discipline will of necessity miss important aspects of what it means to be human, and consequently of the origins of altruistic behavior and self-sacrificing love. Some sociobiologists have so limited the discipline, either implicitly or explicitly. Hill quotes Richard Dawkins and E.O. Wilson among others. Humans (and other plants and animals) are more than sophisticated gene replication mechanisms. Denis Noble in The Music of Life gives a good overview of the biological problems with this view.  Culture and environment bring additional complexity to the picture. We are shaped, down to the very structure of our brains, by social connections with other humans (and animals).

Of course, both “nature” (i.e. genetic factors) and nurture are natural forces. Sociobiology can (and will) be broadened to include these influences. A broader scientific approach still doesn’t answer all Christian concerns with sociobiology.

Problematic language is found in many places. Genes cannot be “selfish.” Selfishness is a moral attribute not properly attributed to a collection of DNA. Genes have no mind or morals or purposes. Such attributes are characteristic of higher level organisms, not of genes. The personified gene is pure fantasy. Moral language is used at other levels as well. Humans cannot be both constrained by genes and uniquely capable of overcoming genetics. Nor is there any reason to think that it is “good” to overcome the “selfish gene” although such is often expressed writings about sociobiology.

Reductionism is an interesting topic for consideration – and it fits well with Hill’s first point. Reductionist reasoning, in Hill’s view, does not acknowledge the whole human person when it considers the question of altruistic behavior. He considers three forms of reductionism: epistemological reductionism, ontological reductionism, and methodological reductionism.

Epistemological reductionism is the unprovable assumption that there is a unified set of physical laws capable of explaining all phenomena (life, society and human cognition). “With epistemological reductionism, the traits found in higher levels of complexity are explained entirely in terms of what is discovered on lower levels of complexity.” (p. 77) In a footnote to this statement Hill he gives the example of biology explained by biochemistry and chemistry including biochemistry in turn by physics.

Ontological reductionism is the assumption that the higher level organizations are nothing more than composites of the lower orders. “In this reduction, one posits that the integrity of the whole is determined completely by the traits of its constituent parts.” (p. 77)

Methodological reductionism is akin to methodological naturalism. This is the assumption that “natural sciences can explain the workings of physical, chemical, and biological processes without recourse to nonscientific or suprascientific ways of thinking.” (p. 78)

Scientific reductionism is a much misunderstood topic by scientists, students, and others. Chemistry is explained by physics, biochemistry by chemistry, and biology by chemistry, but only when the principles of physics, chemistry, and biochemistry are applied to the entire biological system. To take a simple example, a water molecule is not simply two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom – the properties of water are only explained by considering these three atoms as a unified whole. The properties of liquid water are only explained by considering the composite properties of many water molecules. The whole is more than the sum of its parts even if the same laws apply. Water in a cell is only explained by considering the crowded environment of the cell and the electrolytes that are present in the cell. Confined water has important properties distinct from those of bulk water.

Biology may be explained from chemistry and physics, but a complete explanation of life must include more than the individual cells, organs, or organisms. The more complete system must include the complex environment of social interactions with fellow organisms. With humans we add corporate memory, culture and tradition.

A better overall approach to thinking about science is to start with the whole system and break apart and simplify as necessary to understand the workings of the whole rather than to build up from the bottom. This keeps us aware of the simplifications that have been made. Reductions are essential, but should always be noted.

The sociobiological literature (and indeed much other literature in science and social science) is replete with unjustified reductionism. These reductions can help to analyze problems, but often the importance of the whole system is lost in the process. In sociobiology and evolutionary psychology the reductions tend to remove the person from the problem.

Human altruism. Hill suggests that the selfish gene and the selfish individual are unjustified reductions in sociobiological explanations of altruism. There is a ground assumption that altruistic behavior will only exist if it benefits the fitness of the population. Altruism cannot be “pure” but only an adaptive survival mechanism. These explanations of altruism, especially human altruistic behavior, fail to take into account the social cultural environment in which human behavior takes place. Conscious thought and give-and-take relationships are integral to who and what we are. Hill emphasizes that “the whole person, including free will, motivation, and intention, need to be accounted for without reductionism.”

Human altruism is a social trait that cannot be divorced from our biology, environment, tradition, and culture.  In fact, humans can behave altruistically without thinking much about it, analyzing motive or consequences.

Free Will. But the key point buried in Hill’s analysis of the question of sociobiology and altruism is that of free will. The human mind, consciousness and will, is at the frontier of science. There is no scientific explanation for human freedom – a freedom some will deny on metaphysical grounds (either religious or naturalistic) but which we all intuitively experience. There are constraints on human freedom for sure, but they are not complete. We make real decisions all the time. “The genetic makeup of humans seems not to completely push human action into selfishness or complete altruism – instead, the human person lies somewhere in between. A more helpful explanation of altruism instead of reductionist accounts has to include the ability of an agent to utilize free will to overcome biological and environmental constraints on altruistic behavior.” (p. 104)

When do scientific explanations of human behavior, including altruistic behavior, venture into unjustified reductionism?

How much of human nature can be understood through science?

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

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

John Frye:

“Christian universalism is the view that in the end God will reconcile all people to himself through Christ,” is Robin A. Parry’s opening sentence. Parry sets out to convince the reader in the rest of his essay in Four Views on Hell that “What makes universalism universal is simply the insistence that ‘God will reconcile all people.’”

Parry assures the reader that the universalist view is not some new liberal concept, but was supported by numerous Early Church Fathers that include Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea, early Jerome and early Augustine. Simply, universalism is an ancient view.

What I appreciate about Parry’s essay is not only his arguments for God’s intent to reconcile “all things” to himself, but his engagement with the “tricky texts” that seem (in his view) to deny universalism. I didn’t see Burk in his ECT essay engage the universalism texts. Burk does, however, in his responses to Parry.

Having twice carefully read Parry’s essay, I have to agree with Stackhouse that universalism “is the triumph of hope over exegesis.” Why would Stackhouse write that?

Parry sets about to establish “the context of the Christ-centered Biblical Narrative” into which he will situate hell. Within this sweeping narrative based on the proof text of Romans 11:36, Parry constructs a grand story in which God’s love wins in the end over the punishment of the wicked. Noting an Old Testament pattern of first judgment and then restoration, Parry reads that same pattern into the critical texts of Revelation 14 and 20. Parry does not deny hell or punishment in it, but views all punishment as both retributive and restorative. With his narrative theme, then, Parry can exegete a tricky text like Mark 9:42-50 in a clever way by determining that the meaning of “salted by fire” means purified for heaven. There’s the rub. Walls writes, “…but his [Parry’s] focus on the big picture allowed him to make the case that these texts [that don’t support universalism] can plausibly be read differently from how they usually have been read (141).

Both Stackhouse and Walls push back on Parry’s understanding of free will. Why does this issue come up? Because universalism has determinism in it as surely as does double-predestinarian Calvinism. If God’s eternal purpose is to reconcile all things, including all people, to himself, then ultimately humans do not have free will. Parry’s illustration of the psychology of a boy not putting his hand into a fire is summarily dismantled and dismissed by Stackhouse and Walls. The appeal to rationalism as a basis for all humans to freely choose salvation presents a problem. “It is this psychological deficiency in universalism that I honestly don’t understand,” Stackhouse writes, “[the stories of the Bible] warn that sinners aren’t logical” (138).

Universalism is a view that all people wish would be true. Love wins. Yet, when pressed against all the biblical texts concerning hell, a hopeful metanarrative does not cancel out the exegetical and theological realities of either ECT or Terminal Punishment.