Rethinking Heaven (NT Wright)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:58 pm By Scot McKnight

What ideas were presented to you about heaven when you grew up? [Please drop a comment because I’d like to know how many of us grew up with the notions of a new heaven and new earth — let’s call it a renewed earth heaven — or a heaven up there and out there — let’s call it a spiritual heaven.]

N.T. Wright, in Simply Good News, makes his standard and oft-repeated idea that heaven for a Jew and for Jesus and the first apostles was not what many today think it is. And that is: (1) Jesus will take us there and (2) it will follow his second coming (or the rapture). “This misses the whole point” (90).

The Bible says remarkably little about what happens to people, even to God’s people, after they die—at least, immediately after they die. Eventually—ah, that’s another story. The Bible, especially the New Testament, is very interested in what happens eventually. That is because the Bible, and the good news at its heart, are about the rescue and renewal of the whole creation (90-91).

Wright focuses on Rev 21-22 and Isa 11:1-10 and Ps 96:11-13. And above all the resurrection of Jesus: new creation has begun, that is the message of his resurrection. [And that he is ruling as king.]

Notice now that the soterian gospel here morphs into a new creation gospel, but it is still a soteriological gospel — expanded, earth-icized, but still soteriology at the core. The gospel, however, is first and foremost a declaration about Jesus and only then a message about salvation. He continues:

So if the good news about the past has to do with something Jesus did back then, the good news about the future has to do with something Jesus is going to do when he returns. He will transform the whole world and fill it with his justice, his joy, and his love. That is indeed good news (91).

Tom speculates — as it were — about heaven (the new heavens and the new earth) in a way with which many of us agree:

We will become more human, not less. If, in the present, we have been given tasks to do, vocations to pursue, the ability to delight in music and love and light and laughter, then it would be strange if, in the new creation, none of this mattered anymore (96).

This means mission has changed to be a mission about restoring the created order.

God wants to put humans right to put the world right. And the good news is that this, too, has been accomplished through Jesus (97).

This means a refocusing of the problem itself:

The problem is not “Oh dear, humans sinned, so they will now go to hell.” The problem is “Humans sinned, so the whole creation will fail to attain its proper goal.” Perhaps that failure, if not dealt with, is part of what we should mean by hell (98).

And the gospel too:

All this brings us back to our earlier themes of coronation, covenant, and creation. In the New Testament, Jesus announces that God is becoming king. He is enthroned—that’s how the Gospel writers see it—as, on the cross, he completes his work of covenant renewal, the forgiveness of sins. And all this is so that humans thus rescued from their sins can resume their proper work as image bearers. Unless the good news contains this as a major strand, it is selling itself short (98).

That is, the gospel renews people to enter into God’s mission of new creation.

We know this because Jesus was raised from the dead, and his resurrection launches “God’s new world” (99). At work here is the cross, too, which is overcome by the resurrection; sin has been dealt a death blow by the death of Christ and now a new order has been inaugurated. We see here coronation, covenant and (new) creation.

Colossians 1:18:

And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

Where’s the church in all this? I’ll put it this way: this can be read as an ecclesial vision of God’s mission or a social justice vision of God’s mission.

Scripture, Church, Tradition

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:58 pm By Scot McKnight

At its simplest, Protestants believe in Scripture alone and Roman Catholics believe in Scripture and Tradition. Postmodernity raised its hand in this discussion to remind Protestants that there is no pure “alone” and that all interpretations are mediated by both the individual interpreter and the context of that interpreter. That is, Protestants too have a Scripture and Tradition mode of actual interpretation. That is the simplified story.

Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the relationship of the two and one of my favorites is by John Franke, The Character of Theology, which was discussed on this blog way back in 2005 (here is the opening post). Franke offers a solid attempt for Protestants to grapple with Catholic senses of tradition/Tradition and a Protestant attempt to deal with the same.

What issues arise for you that prove that Scripture alone is challenged by an interpretive tradition? What issues make you wish we go back and start all over again with nothing but the Bible?

It’s time, then, for a Roman Catholic attempt, and nothing finer than Matthew Levering’s new book, Engaging the Doctrine of Revelation, which has the very clear subtitle as an orientation to where Matthew is headed: The Mediation of the Gospel through Church and Scripture. Matthew lives about a mile south of me and we have had an occasional lunch together, and I have to admit my admiration for his virtue and faith as well as his knowledge and clarity in theological articulation. [Image credit]

His opening introduction is the concern of this post as I, along with a Presbyterian, will be reviewing the book in more detail and substance in a later post (more about that later). The introduction is about Catholic and Protestant theories of Scripture since Vatican II.

Prior to Vatican II was the Theological Commission’s Schema that was then responded to by then theological advisor to a Cardinal, namely, Joseph Ratzinger (Benedictus XVI). Vatican II produced Dei Verbum, probably the most definitive doctrine of Scripture available to Catholics. Levering then discusses three major proposals for Scripture (and tradition and the church) in the Catholic tradition, with this summary:

The first (Dulles) focuses on the category of “symbol” so as to express the richness of revelation, with its interplay of event and word, and to get beyond propositionalist accounts of revelation—without denying the role of propositions. The second (Haught) leaves propositional revelation almost entirely behind and argues that “revelation” simply consists in human images that express God’s love for us and that orient us trustingly :oward transcendent mystery. The third (O’Collins 2011) securely retrieves propositional revelation, but in a manner that prioritizes the personal dimension of revelation that the advocates of “symbol” highlighted (18).

Levering clearly liked a predecessor, René Latourelle, and he interplays the issues of personal revelation and propositional revelation. He disapproves of the trend among some Catholics to downplay proposition.

For the Protestants, he discusses Paul Ricouer (who downplays proposition), Richard Swineburne (who affirms it), and Colin Gunton (who also affirms it). He couldn’t have chosen three more significant players. But the issues of revelation, Scripture, tradition and church are pushed into special categories, and he focuses most on Gunton who thinks tradition and church get too much value among Catholics. Levering responds:

Without placing the Church over revelation, the Spirit can guarantee the Church’s preservation from error n its definitive interpretations of revelation—which differs from guaranteeing the truthfulness of everything the Church says and does. This perspective enables us to give due weight to “the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). In short, we can accept the existence of errors within the Church’s works and teachings over the centuries, so long as we do not suppose that these (reformable) errors produced a rupture, that is to say a false definitive doctrine about faith or morals in the heart of the transmission of revelation (27).

Here is Matthew Levering’s big idea for the book:

My book focuses on the mediation of divine revelation, or specifically on how the Triune God, ever present and active, sustains the handing on of revelation by “the Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16), the community that Peter describes as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,” whose mission is to “declare the wonderful deeds of him who called [believers] out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9) (28).

How Science Works — Objecting to Evolution

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:58 pm By Scot McKnight

How does science really work? Is it a game played behind closed doors by a special clan of credentialed folks who have created a society in which no one can criticize their central ideas? Or is it a game played on the open market for all to see? That is the question Denis Alexander is posing in his chapter called “Objection to Evolution” in the book Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose?

Regardless of what many say in public or behind pulpits or on blogs, Alexander’s faith in the integrity of the scientific field is firm. Here are some important words from Alexander, words I have found confirmed every time I have talked to a scientist:

Science thrives in open societies where dissent and discussion are encouraged, but tends to shrivel or perhaps never gets going properly in the first place where the opposite is the case (154).

How do we know science is done in an open society? What experiences do we have of scientists changing their minds on the basis of evidence?

I have sometimes been told by critics outside the scientific community that there would never be any hope of publishing data that looked likely to subvert evolutionary theory, because evolution for biologists is a ‘holy cow’ that must be protected at all costs. In fact, exactly the opposite is the case. It is every biologist s dream to make discoveries that would upset some cherished theory (154).

Precisely, and the same game is played in Biblical studies. Scholars really do study hard; they really do work within the field and alongside others; they really do know what evidence and hypothesis and verification is all about; and they really do like to offer a proposal that will change the field.

Sadly, many church people don’t believe this about science, in spite of trusting science in other fields or for other topics, and such people sometimes make claims counter to what Alexander is saying, what he knows from experience, and which scientists too will confirm. Thus, he opines:

One of the deep mysteries of life – far more mysterious than the origins of the Ediacaran fauna – is why people spend their time going round churches telling people that they don’t believe evolutionary theory. If people wish to challenge a theory then that is an excellent and honourable path to follow in the best of scientific traditions. But there are  well-established ways of carrying out a scientific critique and these involve the tough course of becoming a member of the scientific research community, and then finding and publishing results in peer-reviewed journals that may challenge a particular theory. That is how theory testing is done, and it is the only way that will win the respect of the scientific community. Public votes, popular articles, political pressures, campaigns or even sermons by famous preachers will have no effect on scientific opinion because that is not how science is done. So really serious objections to evolution, if there are any, have to be presented the tough but proper way, by publication of solid results in reputable scientific journals.

Here is a typical claim that believes it is countering evolution:

Evolution is a chance process and this is incompatible with the God of the Bible bringing about his purposeful plan of creation.

Alexander’s response, and this is important:

It is intriguing that this question comes up so often because, taken as a whole, evolution is in no sense a chance process. Atheistic biologists like Richard Dawkins and Christian evolutionary biologists like Simon Conway Morris equally conclude that the evolutionary process is not a matter of chance. The point is sometimes missed that one of Dawkins s urns in writing his book The Blind Watchmaker, as he states in the preface, is ‘to destroy this eagerly believed myth that Darwinism is a theory of “chance” (156).

So if we look at the overall process of evolution, it is very far indeed from any notion of ‘metaphysical chance’. It is stringently regulated series of events in which food chains are built up in precisely defined ecological niches. The process has occurred in particular environments characterised by parameters such as cold and heat, light and darkness, wetness and dryness, with the constraints of gravity playing a key role in defining animal and plant sizes and shapes. There are good reasons why elephants don’t fly. And there are good reasons why the eye has evolved not once but many times during the process of evolution…. Therefore evolutionary mechanisms are nothing like the processes that we normally think of as ‘random’ in any ultimate sense (159).

The physical properties of the universe were defined in the very first few femtoseconds after the big bang, and the process of evolution depends utterly on that particular set of properties. Without them we would not be here (159).

So as Christians we can perceive the evolutionary process simply as the way that God has chosen to bring biological diversity into being, including us. That is the way things are and our task as scientists is to describe the way things are – what God has done in bringing this vast array of biological diversity into being (159).

Long Days, Tired Churchfolk (Donald Nwankwo)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:58 pm By Scot McKnight

Long Days and Tired Churchfolk: thoughts on dealing with spiritual weariness

You could see Amber fighting back tears as she admitted, following some updates on her life in the past year: “I just feel caught between too many things. Life has been frantically intense, busy and just so crazy. And I have felt so far from God in the midst of it all!”

[Image sent to me by Donald and they can be congratulated for the recent birth of a baby girl.]

We were four of us, good old friends at a coffee shop catching up on each one’s life. After a few inputs from here and there, Amber finished her session with the question that got me, us, thinking, “The craziness of life is one thing, and it probably happens to almost everyone once in a while, but how can one maintain some level of spiritual stability through it all?”

That’s the central question I returned with to ponder about. I would also share some of these thoughts with the group the next time we met. Pondering, I could relate to the bottom-line of Amber’s feelings. I had been there a few times before. I may come back there again too, who knows?

Tiredness is a natural phenomenon. Our physical and mental faculties are given the capability to work, work hard, and then tire and become in need of rest. That is simply part of our biological frame. It is a healthy cycle. Obviously, we are speaking of tiredness, not in the medical sense of the term as a result or symptom of a health condition, but tiredness as that natural winding down of our bodies and minds as they communicate to us that they need rest. On the usual daily (or nightly) basis, it is easy to handle. The real challenge happens when we experience extended phases of life laden with demanding times that leave us exhausted for prolonged seasons.

When committed Christians (actually, any religiously committed person) face overwhelmingly demanding seasons – physical, mental and/or emotional, they tend to sense it weighing on them spiritually also. At those times they could feel (what I will loosely call here) a sense of spiritual tiredness. If physical tiredness refers to the condition where one feels sapped of energy or strength, and cannot continue at the same initial level of energy or strength, then I only refer to spiritual tiredness in this post as that condition where a religious person, a practicing Christian for purposes of this article, senses that lack of internal motivation or drive to keep engaging spiritual practices – personally or communally. It is that condition where, if you knew what spiritual respite could ever mean (if it means anything at all), you might consider it.

To clarify, this feeling of spiritual tiredness as used here does not refer to the disengagement that is simply due to the lack of time or energy as a result of life’s pressures. It rather refers to the declining internal motivation or drive in spiritual and religious commitments and practices during those times. You see, this is the more risky aspect of the matter. If time and availability are truly not there, then they are simply not there that season. If that was the case, then the bigger impact to watch for becomes the long term rather than the short. Put another way, would we come out on the other end of that season still standing, or will its toll take us from spiritual tiredness to spiritual apathy in the end? That is the possible sting of spiritual weariness!

Here are a few of this pilgrim’s ponderings on how we can stay spiritually revived, surviving through such times.

Learn to think organically: This is going to be the foundation of a lot of other layers shaping a spiritual response to these stages. When we develop this mindset that our life is integrated, we are enabled to begin to see the possibility of serving in, and through, various kinds of conditions. Then our faculties are shaped into seeing everything else around us in connection with God and His Presence. This basic understanding (and faith) is crucial. This is how, in these times, you can be surprised by the sight of the possibility of serving God in ways and through circumstances that look different from what you’ve known before. If you are from a formal liturgical church community, then you probably remember the sending that normally happens at the end of the community worship time. By that bidding, we go into our worlds, taking with us the light of Christ’s Presence. In such way, those pressures no longer keep you from God, you rather come into them with God’s Presence. It is therefore psychologically important, in those times of pressure, not to mentally over-dichotomize aspects of our lives.
Try to Integrate: Having learned to view organically, you are led to the next phase of integrating your faith principles into those subsets of life. This, of course, is done appropriately, respecting the context and circumstance. It need not be a forced linkage. It needs to flow from the internal parts of us, pouring out properly in love and conviction into those contexts, albeit faithfully. For example, Christ’s love can flow in the care-giving of an ill family member while viewing the concurrent long work hours as an avenue to provide, thereby serving your family in this way – both being done from a posture of worship and love. You can think about it this way: As I face my pressures, what are some take-aways from my life of faith that speak into my current circumstances, lighting up my path in view of these present areas of service into which I have been sent with the Light of Christ? Now, I must admit, this is sometimes easier said than done, especially in the heat of the demands. But remember, the first point above helps set the stage for this attitude.
Learn to relinquish: Try your best to prioritize and let go of some things so you can find some in-between rest. During intense seasons of life, some things may now need to go to the back burner. At such times, knowing how to separate between the urgent and the important is helpful. You not only need to let go of things physically, but emotionally also. The physical and emotional rest you get a hold of intermittently can be very reviving for you spiritually, still within those times.
Learn to rekindle: As you prioritize and relinquish and find rest, try your best develop some pieces of intentional practices that rekindle your spiritual fervor. Don’t push it. Find them. These are like random sticks you keep throwing in your spiritual fireplace to keep it going until you can return to the regular loading up of the wood normally used. This keeps your spiritual fire burning, and if you have any spiritual sensitivity, you will appreciate the warmth at those times… and even much afterward, looking back at those times. Some of those spiritual practices may be intermittent solitude, quiet times, Bible study, short prayers from the depths of your soul, or time with a Christian friend where you feel safe to just pour out your heart and be blessed by their fellowship. They may look like snippets, but when filled with a heart desirous of God, His Spirit can take them and fill them up with grace and rekindling.
Finally, keep trusting: When all has been said and done, keep trusting God’s Presence. In life’s journey as His people, God’s Presence will go with us. Sometimes we sense more than we need to believe, and other times we may need to believe more than we sense. I do think that seasons of stress and spiritual weariness are seasons when trusting is most necessary. We trust Him based on His credibility and faithfulness. We trust He is in it with us!

Life throws tough days at us. It’s not easy when you find yourself caught between long work hours and taking care of an ill family member; or caught between full time work, family and school; or single parenthood, work and caring for ageing parents. At those times, it can be helpful to take a step back and spiritually strategize in terms of the larger picture than the immediate. The point is not about how to cut corners on those demands, as much as how to remain spiritually stable in spite of them, and come through it all standing. Whatever the case, when you come out on the other side, make sure God has not lost your heart.

Scientists, Celebrities, and Yahoos … Why Are We Here? (RJS)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:58 pm By RJS

The next chapter of Philip Yancey’s new book Vanishing Grace: What Ever Happened to the Good News? makes a great followup to Tuesday’s post the “scientific” answer to the question “why are we here?”. Yancey addresses this question by illustrating several of the views running around in our society and contrasting them with a Christian answer to the question.

An Accident of Evolution. Yancey begins with the view put forth by Gould that humans are simply an accident of evolution. We simply are. There is no cosmic significance to our presence. And he considers the fact that some scientists go further than Gould. There is nothing significant that separates us from other animals. But Yancey finds this a bit troubling:

I find the evolutionary psychologists’ account of animal behavior fascinating. When they apply the same principles to human beings, however, my alarm bells go off. To mention the most important one, displacing God knocks the human species off its pedestal as well. If human beings are not made in the image of God, how can we claim any special rights and privileges? Zoologist Paul Shepard admits, “Rights’ implies some kind of cosmic rule … something intrinsic or given by God or Nature.” Candid atheists agree that any discussion about human or animal rights is pointless – which has a huge impact on how we view ourselves and the world.

“There is really no rational reason for saying a human being has special rights,” says Ingrid Newkirk, cofounder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. “A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.” (p. 198-199)

Yancey even found a group that advocates voluntary human extinction to allow the majority of earth-dwelling species to thrive. Humans are the primary threat to many of these. If humans have no special place perhaps the best, most altruistic action, is simply to commit suicide as a species. Not many go this far, of course. And even many atheists and naturalists will point to human consciousness and creativity as a feature that sets our species apart.

The Christian answer to the human question, the purpose of mankind, differs greatly from that of Gould and from that of our surrounding culture.

Or at least it should differ greatly, although it doesn’t always seem that way.

Consumers and Celebrities. Modern Western culture concerns itself little with the grand philosophical questions.

The average person brushes aside philosophical questions and the latest trends in evolutionary science. Most of us drift along in the cultural current, buying the newest electronic gadgets, watching movies and television, paying bills, taking the kids to soccer practice. We live in the “broad way,” to borrow Jesus’ term, which rarely attends to such grand questions as “Why are we here?” Instead popular culture provides an endless stream of trivia – news items, games, sports, Hollywood gossip – that have a tranquilizing effect. (p. 203)

And If I look to modern culture for an answer to “Why are we here?” I can only infer that we are here to laugh, make money, become famous, and look as good as possible. (p. 204)

But it is even more insidious. We focus on celebrities to a damaging excess.

We have invented a two-tiered society of watchers and the watched, like sixty thousand spectators in a football stadium who focus on the tiny figures on the field below. … (p. 206)

Every society has elevated the rich and powerful: Chinese bureaucrats crept on the ground before the emperor, the serfs of Russia lowered their heads in awe as the carriage of the czar thundered by. What’s new is the illusion of intimacy. … The illusion of intimacy allows me to feel close to my heroes, though actually if I went up to any of them and started a conversation bodyguards would swiftly whisk me away. (p. 207)

For those who follow Jesus there is a true intimacy in the good news he offered. There is intimacy with the God of the universe offered to all. Jesus ate with sinners, he didn’t hang out exclusively with the rich and famous and powerful.

To a woman shamed by an embarrassing malady, to a social outcast with leprosy, to a thief hanging on a cross hours from death, to a common prostitute – to all these people and many more he held out the bright promise that significance is not something attained but rather bestowed by a gracious God. And thus we who follow Jesus should treat those who rank low on society’s scale – “the least of these,” in Jesus’ phrase – as he did, proclaiming by our deeds what we believe about the image of God in every person. (p. 208)

Yancey doesn’t go in quite this direction, but I must reflect a bit … Unfortunately, the celebrity culture has permeated to the core of the church. Not taking over completely, but like a slime oozing into the nooks an crannies. We bow before our heroes and produce a two-tiered church of watchers and the watched. Celebrities and stars who are watched by the masses with an illusion of intimacy. We mirror the greater culture … and measure success by measures of the world. The more successful the man the larger the crowd he attracts to himself (baptized in God words of course). This applies to women as well, of course. But this celebrity culture has no legitimate place in the church. Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. We are all his servants and disciples, nothing more.

No place for losers. Our shallow celebrity culture has another corollary. There is little place for losers. And we must identify the winner. As I read this chapter an example of the pervasive nature of this pressure occurred to me. Consider the changes in college football over the last many decades. Even college football now must be structured to provide a clear winner with everyone else branded a loser. No ties, no distributed system of bowls – a clear champion with a winner and many losers. The people want it, our culture pushes for it, and it makes a great deal of money.

Back to Vanishing Grace … Yancey quotes the Canadian novelist Robertson Davies:

The greatest idiot and yahoo can be saved, the doctrine goes, because Christ loves him as much as he loves Albert Einstein. I don’t think that is true. I think that civilization – life – has a different place for the intelligent people who try to pull us a little further out of the primal ooze that is has for the boobs who just trot along behind, dragging on the wheels. (p. 213)

In fact, it is not just that the idiot and yahoo can be saved, but that there are no losers in God’s kingdom. Even those Davies might term the idiot or yahoo have a sense of destiny and a part to play.

The good news of the gospel means that every one of us can have a sense of destiny, a part to play in God’s great story. We are more than a collection of neurons, more than an organism directed by a script of selfish genes. A receptionist, a truck driver, a kindergarten teacher, a banker, a stay-at-home mom or dad can all realize that destiny: not by adopting cultural standards of wealth and fame but by loving God and neighbor. It’s the difference between just living, and living for God’s sake.

Why are we here? We, all of us, are here because of this Creator’s love, who seeks both our flourishing and our response of love and gratitude. “Find out what pleases the Lord,” Paul told the Ephesians. We are here to please God. It brings God pleasure to see us thrive, and we thrive by living as God intended. (p. 214)

There are no winners, losers, or celebrities in the kingdom of God. We are all disciples. In fact perhaps from Revelation we see that celebrity is reserved for martyrs – who die to enjoy it.

The Christian answer to why we are here is different from that of the world and it raises up each and every human as the image of God. All are important.

Why are we here?

What difference does this make in how we live?

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.

NT Wright’s Holy Impatience

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:58 pm By Scot McKnight

When it comes to the meaning of biblical terms — like gospel, kingdom, heaven — not a few of us can get irritated and clearly a recent example of yet one more attempt to correct the church and to get the church back on track is N.T. Wright’s chapter “Distorted and Competing Gospels” in his new book, Simply Good News.

He’s definitely pointing his finger at shallow gospels and the world’s pressures when it comes to comprehending how good the news is. There’s a holy impatience in Wright in this (quite long) chapter. Hence, notice the following:

Those who adhere to the early Christian (I call it “apostolic”) gospel may find themselves in good company:

The stories about Jesus constantly portray him as saying things that even his family and friends didn’t understand…. In other words, when Jesus himself was telling the good news as he saw it, there were plenty of people who found it so different from what they expected that they just couldn’t see it. [In fact, Wright observes…] The good news is always different from what people think it will be (60).

Wright explores this in what some might call the noetic effects of the Fall when he speaks of our “mental framework” (61) making it hard for us to grasp the goodness of the news. And Jesus chose the term kingdom to speak this good news:

The reason Jesus went on talking about kingdom, despite the obvious risks of misunderstanding in his own day, was because he wanted to replace the ordinary sort of kingdom with i quite different sort (63).

Back to one of his old themes:

He was insisting that this kingdom of God, this new reality, the heart of his good news, was a different sort of rule based on a different sort of power. And that it was designed to challenge the present powers of the world with a new kingship that would trump theirs altogether (63).

Where I see his holy impatience is in his castigation of the soterian gospel or soterian reductions of the gospel and it what it means for our understanding of God:

When I say the popular view, I mean the view of most people inside the church as well as outside. Most people in the Western world think of Christianity as a system: a religious system, a system of salvation, or a system of morality. Most people do not think of it as news—a message about something that happened, as a result of which everything is now different (64-65).

At the center of his holy impatience is the death of Jesus which he thinks has been placed into an inadequate (or wrong) narrative:

Most people who regard the statement that Jesus died in your place as the center of the gospel place this truth, this beautiful fragment, into a larger story that goes like this. There is a God, and this God is angry with humans because of their sin. This God has the right, the duty, and the desire to punish us all. If we did but know it, we are all heading for an eternal torment in hell. But this angry God has decided to vent his fury on someone else instead—someone who happens to be completely innocent. Indeed, it is his very own son! His wrath is therefore quenched, and we no longer face that terrible destiny. All we have to do is to believe this story and we will be safe (68-69).

Instead of a story about creation and covenant and God as the God of infinite love, this story reframes the death of Jesus into a different narrative. And Wright speculates that at times some people’s relationship to their fathers — angry ones to be sure — are behind this view of God and this view of the death of Jesus and this view of the gospel. Romans makes clear that “God’s implacable rejection of evil is the natural outflowing of his creative love” (70).

So where does this death of Jesus fit?

His death is a vital and central part of how that is done. We cannot bypass it. We cannot downplay it. We cannot underemphasize it. But it makes the sense it makes within this picture: of the love of God, the covenant of God, the plan of God for the fulfillment of the whole of creation, not its abolition, and above all, the coronation of Jesus as the world’s rightful king and lord. Many times, when people preach the gospel and talk of Jesus dying in our place, you would never guess at any of these things (73-74).

This competing gospel is then combined with larger Western themes: rationalism and romanticism [a section where he needs to consider that the early colonies and nation did not think in simple terms about going to heaven when they die but also — very trenchantly at times — of a kingdom that makes its impact in the here and now. The theme of a “city on a hill” is an embodied, this-worldly view of a new Jerusalem and a Christian nation.]

Wright’s holy impatience then extends to the Enlightenment’s obsession with empiricism and scientism and the story of progress this belief has created. Thus, “We are liberated; we are progressive” (84). But the gospel centers the revolution, not with the Enlightenment or the Magna Carta but with the resurrection. Thus, “Since that is the center of the early Christian good news, anyone who holds the modern Western view will inevitably misunderstand it” (86).

Interview with N.T. Wright (by Jonathan Storment)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:58 pm By Scot McKnight

This past week I went with my friend Luke Norsworthy to interview N.T. Wright. Luke has a great podcast and two weeks ago he invited me to come along with him as he interviewed Dr. Wright about his new book “Simply Good News” and Luke gave me the opportunity to ask him some questions for pastors specifically for my column on this blog.

I’ve read Surprised By Hope 6 different times and after I made a slightly creepy stalker joke and then apologized for what my southern accent was doing to the “King’s English” I wanted to ask Wright how he sees his robust vision of the Restoration of All Things playing out at the local church level. In light of what I wrote on last week, I think this is great advice on how our hope shapes our practices.

I hope his answers were as helpful to you as they were to me., if so I encourage you to subscribe to Luke’s podcast, you can find the entire interview here.

Jonathan: I’m a pastor, and I hang out with a lot of pastors and we love your eschatology, we love this vision of a new heaven and a new earth and how you’ve given us tools to dismantle the gnostic bits of theology we have. What does this look like for somebody who serves the local church as they’re sitting in budget meetings? What does it look like for someone who has this hope on the local church level?

NT Wright: That’s a huge question and obviously for many years of my life I was doing precisely that. When I was in pastoral ministry, and when I was working as a Bishop.

I think what the hope does for you is that, without that, you would look at whether it’s the budget decisions, or whether it’s the church needs a new roof, or whatever it’s going to be, and you might have this awful sense of “Oh dear, are we ever going to get there, Is it worth it? Or are we actually just whistling in the wind?” And the answer is “No. God has already done new Creation, that’s the news of the gospel, in Jesus.”

God will complete that at the end. And what we do now, if it’s done prayerfully and waiting on God and the guidance of the Spirit, what we do now is part of that. That doesn’t mean that our little human projects we all be successful in the world’s terms, it means that we are planting seeds which will grow and bear fruit.

And here, when I was working as a bishop and having exactly those conversations, we came back to the Parable of the Sower and to the other parables in Mark 4 and Matthew 13 again and again and again. [We wanted} to encourage our clergy with whom we were working, and the laity as well, that what you do in the LORD is not in vain, as Paul says at the end of 1 Corinthians 15.

You are planting seeds and you may not see in your own lifetime what the fruit of those seeds will be and it is possible that some of the birds of the air will come and gobble some of them up. But if you are planting faithfully and wisely than there will be good seed and it will land in good soil, and it will bring forth fruit 30 fold, 60 fold, and a 100 fold. So the hope is precisely the hope of the parable of the Sower. But obviously, and it’s part of the reason I think Jesus was telling the parable, there are puzzles along the way as well. But the point is we shouldn’t be put off by the puzzles, by the apparent (in human terms: failures) but we should look to the eventual fruit which God will bring.

Jonathan: In your recent book, you talk about progress, specifically you talk about the way that we (Christians) merge talk of the Kingdom of God and progress, and I’ve noticed that talk about the Kingdom of God differently than I and my pastor friends do. You talk about “entering the Kingdom”, or “receiving the Kingdom”, but a lot of my friends and I talk about “Building the Kingdom” or “Advancing the Kingdom” and then we find ourselves becoming angry.

NT Wright: Yeah, that’s why in Surprised by Hope I rather carefully talk about building for the Kingdom, rather than building the Kingdom. And the images that I’ve used again and again is of the medieval stone masons building for the cathedral.

The individual masons, if you were to say, “What are you doing?” and they said “I’m building a Cathedral” than that would be grandiose and ridiculous, because the master builder is building the cathedral. What you’re doing is carving this little bit of stone and it’ll take you several weeks to get the carving right and the pattern right, and then one day when all the stones are gathered up, you will see your little bit of stone up there on the west front of the east wing or whatever it is, and you’ll realize that you were building for the cathedral, you weren’t actually building the cathedral.

That’s what, it seems to me, it will be like when God completes God’s New Creation. The things that we’ve done, the things which have loomed so large for us now will be these tiny little bits and pieces, and we’ll realize they were part of a much larger pattern than we could’ve ever imagined, and that’s part of the humility of it.

The things that we think are so important, may be a tiny little twiddle a gargoyle or a water spout here or whatever, on the great design that God has. And some of the more substantial, solid things in the middle of God’s new Creation, will probably be things, which we didn’t even notice were happening, but which faithful, humble “ordinary” Christians were getting on and doing below the radar when no one was looking. Those will be the things that will really be making it.

That’s back to the Beatitudes again, it’s not the big loud-mouthed, bullying people who are mentioned in the Beatitudes, it’s the meek and the humble and the hungry for justice people, and the mourners and so on. They’re the ones who make the Kingdom happen.

It’s building for the Kingdom rather than building the Kingdom in our own way.

P.S. As an end note, I have no idea what a twiddle is, but who am I to argue with Dr. Wright?

Church Workers Need a New Target [other than numbers] (by Jeff Cook)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:58 pm By Scot McKnight

Church Workers Need a New Target

Life requires replication. If something does not replicate, its kind will not continue on—just ask that Shaker you know.

A 1000 person church is impressive. A church of 100 folks that over the course of 40 years empowers and sends out 12 pastors is more impressive. How do I know?

Imagine a piece of paper in your mind. Fold the piece of paper in half—one time. Now do it again – a second time. The paper’s width has grown taller. It was .004 inches, but after two folds it is now .016 inches tall. Fold it again and the width will be .032 inches tall.

Now imagine an exceedingly large piece of paper. Imagine this large piece of paper being folded fifty times. How tall do you think your .004 inch wide piece of paper would grow? A foot? 20 Feet? It couldn’t be more than 100 feet?

The answer isn’t what we expect.

Your folded piece of paper would cover the distance from the Earth to the Sun (.004 x (2⁵⁰) equals 4.5 trillion inches or roughly 71 million miles). Fold it once more and it would cover the distance from here to the Sun and back.

Church leaders, if we focus on simply adding people, we set aside the power of multiplication. If I tried to reach the Sun by adding one piece of paper on another, upon another, upon another—it would take me over five hundred thousand years to cover the distance. Give me an exceptional team of 100 dedicated, 24 hour-a-day workers and I cut that time down to 5,000 years. But if I, and I alone, multiply by folding my single sheet of paper, I cover the distance in fifty moves.

What if the target that many of us have been aiming at for decades—“bigger and more”—is precisely the way to get smaller and less?

Take the largest 100 churches in America—churches lead by freakishly-skilled, world-renowned folks—collectively they gather only 1,147,000 people into their buildings on Sundays. That’s .3% of the US population (slightly less than the number of Hindus).

Yet there are 330,000 churches in our country, and if each of them focused on serving 100 people and producing twelve more pastors over the next 40 years, a Christian community would soon serve every person in America. Fold the paper with 12 disciples one more time, and there is a pastor for nearly every person on earth.

Perhaps asking how we can reproduce is vastly more important than asking how we can expand.

The Kingdom of God, said Jesus, is like a mustard seed planted in a field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of garden plants and grows into a tree where birds can come and find shelter in its branches.The mustard seed is Jesus, who was buried, but he has risen from the ground and his body continues to fills the earth, and in his arms the nations will rest.

Friends, the growth displayed in this parable—the strategy at work in Jesus’ life—is very, very basic: one teacher with twelve disciples. Of course that doesn’t feel sexy to you high achievers. A single teacher with twelve disciples is a small group.

Unless those twelve begin teaching twelve more, then it becomes an unstoppable movement. If the 144 students of the first 12 begin pouring into yet another 12, you have a huge community of empowered people – 1728 teachers to be precise. One more step lands you at 20,736 disciples. In four steps a single teacher multiplying himself twelve times has unleashed the equivalent of one of the ten largest church communities in America.

So imagine a pastor who, over the course of her life, recruits, identifies and pours into 12 young, soon to be church leaders, all the while leading her own community which ebbs and flows around 100 or so people until she retires. Imagine that pastor brings along these 12: she shepherds and trains, prays over and unveils all that she does, perhaps spending 3 solid years with each one over the course of her 40 years of work. Imagine she trains them to not only pastor a church of 100 or so folks, but also says to each, “The most important work I do is investing in you.” And in her steps she instructs each of her disciples to prayerfully invest in 12 others over the course of their lives.

After five cycles, somewhere around a century of time, that lone church leader will have not only shepherded her own flock of 100 or so folks, she will have empowered 12 other pastors who will have empowered 12 more, who will have empowered 12 more (1728), who will empowered 12 more (20736), who will empowered 12 more (248,832) – nearly the number of churches in America today. Yes this assumes a 100% success rate, but you get the point.

90% of American churches gather less than 200 people. Instead of focusing on how such churches can break the 800 person barrier, perhaps we ought to be asking how small churches can create, sustain, reproduce and go for depth as culturally aware, locally focused, indigenous gardens of life, who—because of their health—empower, equip and send forth just a few leaders each decade to plant again.

Dear church workers, we need to redefine organizational success. We need a new target. A 1000 person church is impressive. There are many praiseworthy large church communities in our culture. But a church of 100 that creates 12 pastors is far more impressive.

Multiply otherwise you are just playing addition.

Jeff Cook is working on a book called “Small Batch Church: Fresh Thoughts on Worship, the Sermon, the Nones, the Dones, the Future, the Creeds, and Why We Gathering around the Table on Sundays”. If you are interested in reading a draft this Spring, please connect with him at @jeffvcook. See his work at www.everythingnew.org

Not Benevolent, Warm, and Fuzzy (RJS)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:58 pm By RJS

The industrious ants store up food for the winter while the grasshopper sings the days away. Aesop’s fable of The Grasshopper and the Ants provides an ancient example of moral lessons derived from nature. Ants are always working and foraging for food. We would do well to emulate this industry. But can nature alone really provide moral lessons? Is it wise to seek such lessons in nature?

Although ants may provide a positive lesson, what about wasps? Charles Darwin commented in a letter to Asa Gray:

There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.

When we expect moral lessons from nature, nature will often disappoint … 0r take us in a direction that seems abhorrent.

And this brings us to the last post on Stephen Jay Gould’s book Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. The final section of the book looks at psychological reasons for the conflict between science and religion. Under Gould’s principle of NOMA (nonoverlapping magisteria) there is no reason for conflict between science and religion (as Gould defines religion), yet conflict remains a popular view. The search for moral and meaning in nature plays an important role here.

Gould sees his proposal of NOMA differentiating …

… between two components of wisdom in a full human life: our drive to understand the factual character of nature (the magisterium of science), and our need to define meaning in our lives and a moral basis for our actions (the magisterium of science). (p. 175)

In his view science – the study of nature – is amoral. It provides information that may inform our moral choices but it is intrinsically neutral. Moral choices must be founded on something other than science. But this has profound consequences for faith as well.

Humans are nothing special. Nature is without meaning and any attempt to attach any particular significance to the species Homo sapiens is misguided. The universe just is, the earth just is, we just are.

We long to situate ourselves on a benevolent, warm, furry, encompassing planet, created to provide our material needs, and constructed for our domination and delectation. Unfortunately, this pipe dream of succor from the realm of meaning (and therefore under the magisterium of religion) imposes definite and unrealistic demands upon the factual construction of nature (under the magisterium of science). (p. 177)

The billions of years of life predating the appearance of humans, in Gould’s view, negates the possibility that there could be any profound ‘natural’ (or divine) meaning and purpose for humans. He finds Psalm 8 a passage that defines the mistaken view of human importance. Humans are insignificantly unimportant in the universe, the result of a fortunate (for us) set of contingent events on minor speck of rock in an immense universe. The view of nature that Darwin and Darwin’s theory of evolution opened up, again in Gould’s view, follows a logical procession. God does not will the death or deformity of a single child. Events are best viewed as chance occurrences. God (if there is a God) allows a freedom in nature. But on a larger scale what is Homo sapiens? Gould develops his argument using a letter that Charles Darwin wrote to Asa Gray.

Darwin, who has been setting Gray up for this denouement all along, now moves in for the kill. If a single baby is only an individual in a population of human beings, why should a single species rank as more than an individual among all earthly species in the fullness of geological time? And why should Homo sapiens be viewed as a goal and a generality, when Pharkidonotus pericarinatus (a favorite fossil snail of mine – I am not making this name up), which lived for a much longer time with markedly larger populations, ranks as only a particular accident of history? What, beyond our dangerous and unjustified arrogance, could even permit us to contemplate such a preferred status for one species among the millions that have graced the history of our planet? (p. 202)

This is the cold bath of reality, into which Gould feels we must jump. Humans are not special and like other species on earth, past, present, and future, are particular accidents of history.

No moral lessons. Gould also argues that the world is not a warm and fuzzy place. There is no profound meaning in anything and it is unwise to search for meaning. The beauty of a mountain, the industry of ants, the maternal or ‘playful’ behavior of cats, the provision of food for a lion, the behavior of ichneumonid wasps, all of these just are. No moral message should be drawn. Charles Darwin and Mark Twain (both of whom he quotes) have …

…rang the death knell over “all things bright and beautiful” – indeed, over any false argument that seeks the basis of moral truth (or any other concept under the magisterium of religion, including the nature and attributes of God) in the factual construction of the natural world. NOMA demands separation between nature’s factuality and humankind’s morality – dare I say that never the Twain shall meet? (p. 189)

Gould is convinced that everything science has taught us points to an amoral purposeless universe that “just is”. Nature is constructed without reference to such abstract human concepts. He sees the importance of his proposition of NOMA in the way it separates moral and scientific discussions. There may be psychological comfort in a religious view of nature with purpose and meaning. There may be psychological comfort in a naturalist view that derives moral instruction from the realities of nature … such as survival of the fittest and heroic dolphins. But both are errant. We need to struggle for moral meaning.

What can be more deluding, or even dangerous, than false comfort that blinds our vision and inspires passivity? If moral truth lies “out there” in nature, then we need not struggle with our own confusions, or with the varying views of fellow humans in our diverse world. We can adopt the much more passive approach of observing nature (or just accepting what “experts” tell us about factual reality) and then aping her ways. But if NOMA holds,and nature remains neutral (while bursting with relevant information to spice up our moral debates), then we cannot avoid the much harder, but ultimately liberating, task of looking into the hearts of our distinctive selves. (p. 204)

While some may see Gould’s view, especially the utter insignificance of humans, as depressing, Gould himself viewed it as exhilarating and liberating. “We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes – one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximal freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our chosen way.” (p. 207)

Final comments. Gould’s view of NOMA involves a total separation of scientific reasoning and moral reasoning. Yes, science provides information that can help inform moral reasoning, but it provides no sure foundation for moral conclusions. Here he speaks primarily to scientists … nature is amoral. This is an important point.

Gould also sees efforts like those funded by the Templeton Foundation to seek a synthesis of science and faith as unfortunate. We would be better to give up on the misguided attempt to hold onto the past and move with boldness into the (godless, or perhaps deist) future. Although he died before BioLogos was formed, I expect that he would view this as just one more irrational attempt to hold onto the past (the orthodoxy of Christian faith). Gould’s vision of NOMA leaves no place for the reality of Christian faith.

A universe with purpose and meaning? … No!

A personal God who intervenes in history and relates with humans created in His image? … No way!

The Word who became flesh and dwelt among us? Gould ends his book with a reference to John 1:1 – but only because language (word) makes us human. The idea of an incarnation, “Christ Jesus who being in very nature God … being made in human likeness … becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross” is utterly ridiculous (and a clear violation of NOMA).

Yet Gould’s book has been well worth reading and wrestling with. I find a great deal of value and insight in the way Gould divorces “nature” and morality. For every positive lesson, such as that provided by the industrious ant, we can find a somewhat repulsive example – the ichnuemon wasps. The world is created as it is, with parasitic wasps, carnivores, and cobras. We can admire the complexity of the world without trying to find deep moral or theological significance in every bit. Even as Christians we must sit with Job and realize that there is much we do not know and understand about God’s creation and we had best shut up. Most (all?) attempts to speculate theologically on the reason for the creation of ichneumon wasps, for example, are justly ridiculed. (Image from Blake’s illustrations of Job.)

More importantly, I agree with Gould that science is simply an investigation of nature. As a Christian I believe that this is an investigation of God’s creation, but this doesn’t affect the practice of science itself. It only affects the interpretation I attach, an interpretation quite different from the meaningless, purposeless view of Gould. It is important, however, to learn to distinguish science from the metaphysical baggage attached to it from all sides.

And this is a good place to stop and start a conversation once again.

Do you see any value in Gould’s proposal of NOMA?

How would you counter his arguments about the utter insignificance of humans?

Does nature hold moral lessons to guide our thinking?

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.

On Losing Faith

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:58 pm By Scot McKnight

In one of the better memoirs I’ve read, that of Roger Scruton called Gentle Regrets, Scruton reflects on England’s loss in England’s loss of its religion. Scruton’s reflections concern the inter-relation of faith and community, if not faith and nation, which in his case is about the Church of England. But loss of faith for most people entails a loss of one’s church community, or one’s parents and siblings and family members or close friends. Faith, when done right in other words, comes to expression in the church.

[image credit]

Faith, Scruton rightly observes, is all encompassing and that means it captures how a society ought to be formed and how its people ought to live:

Faith is not simply an addition to our repertoire of ordinary opinions. It is a transforming state of mind, a stance towards the world, rooted in our social nature and altering all our perceptions, emotions and beliefs (220).

One of the more insightful sections of this chapter is about both the degree of loss in losing faith and the world one inhabits after the loss of faith, and he compares Matthew Arnold and F. Nietzsche, observing that Arnold propped up his new worldview on the old worldview of his church while Nietzsche jumped ship totally. Many today have themselves left the faith but retain much of their old worldview because the world they indwell permits or encourages or already has that worldview.

The distinction between Arnold and Nietzsche is the distinction between two kinds of loss. Arnold’s loss of faith occurs in a world made by faith, in which all the outer trappings of a religious community remain in place, like the outward signs of holiness in a Gothic Revival church. Nietzsche’s loss of faith is an absolute loss, a loss not only of inward conviction but of the outward symbols that make it possible. Nietzsche is foreseeing a new world, in which human institutions will no longer be shored up by pious habits and holy doctrines, but rebuilt from the raw, untempered fabric of the will to power. Loss of faith for Arnold is a personal tragedy, to be mourned but concealed. Loss of faith for Nietzsche is an existential transfiguration, to be accepted and affirmed, since the world no longer permits an alternative. The contrast between these two attitudes can be witnessed today, with the scientific optimists joining Nietzsche in welcoming our liberation from the chains of faith, and the cultural pessimists joining Arnold in his subdued lamentation (220).

But losing faith is inextricably social.

Losing the Christian faith is not merely a matter of doubting the existence of God, or the incarnation, or the redemption purchased on the Cross. It involves falling out of communion, ceasing to be ‘members in Christ’, losing a primary experience of home. All religions are alike in this, and it is why they are so harsh on heretics and unbelievers: for heretics and unbelievers pretend to the benefits of membership, while belonging to other communities in other ways (221).

He takes a sweeping, un-nuanced shot at the Church of England in this one:

And you could be confident that God was an Englishman, who had a quiet, dignified, low-key way of visiting the country each weekend while being careful never to outstay his welcome (229).

And this one:

The Church is not there to propagate the Christian faith, but to forgive those who reject it (230).

He ponders the diminishment of a society — England — with the demise of the CofE, a society always seeking for ultimate grounding:

It is as though our society is seeking to define itself as a religious community, whose very lack of faith has become a kind of orthodoxy (232).

How many Psalms are attributed to David?