{"id":4347,"date":"2008-06-10T00:30:18","date_gmt":"2008-06-10T05:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2008\/06\/10\/christian-realism-5\/"},"modified":"2008-06-10T00:30:18","modified_gmt":"2008-06-10T05:30:18","slug":"christian-realism-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/06\/10\/christian-realism-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Realism 5"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Christian realism steers a course between the Anabaptist vision of the kingdom being achieved, more rather than less, in the church and the Constantinian vision of the kingdom joining hips with the State. Now, of course, there is a spectrum from one end to the other, but Realism is flat-out in the middle. And this view has now been ably articulated by John Stackhouse in his book Making the Best of It<\/a>\"\"<\/em>. We have sketched his preliminaries \u2014 the Niebuhrs, CS Lewis and Bonhoeffer. Today we begin sketching how he puts this all together.
\nStackhouse\u2019s answer is actually implicit in the central question of his book, that is, it is there if you know what you are looking for. His question is this: \u201cWho are we, for Jesus Christ, today?\u201d
\nSo, what is his method? How do we answer a question like this?
\nPerhaps you could ask yourself a moral question about how you make decisons. So here\u2019s a few:
\nWhat process do you go through in deciding which candidate you will vote for?
\nWhat process do you go through in deciding about abortion?
\nWhat process do you go through in deciding about war for the Christian?
\nHow do you<\/em> make your decisions?
\nFirst, the fundamental stance of the Christian is discipleship: attending to Jesus. This means knowing the revelation of Jesus Christ, a sense of who we are, and a sense of what Jesus calls us to be and do. The primary call is to increase in the knowledge and love of God and we need to believe God has provided all we need to do this. God\u2019s will is \u201cwhat is consonant with God\u2019s overarching and ultimate purposes as working out in this particular situation\u201d (167). And because of our fallen world, \u201cwe must see that it might well be the will of God for a Christian individual \u2026 not only to be limited in knowledge but actually mistaken \u2014 even about something important\u201d (167). We should focus on God, then. Our epistemic confidence is in God himself and \u201cnot finally in any of the epistemic means he has provided to us\u201d (168).
\nSecond, there are four means to understanding how to make moral decisions in Christian realism: scripture, tradition, reason and experience. He calls this \u2014 not the Wesleyan quadrilateral but \u2014 \u201ca Protestant (Christian) tetralectic.\u201d Besides being a bad word and hard to say and all, his idea is exceptionally important:
\nIf Scripture is primary, it is not that simple. His point: as a \u201cdialectic\u201d is the interaction of two things, so a \u201ctetralectic\u201d is the ongoing, mutual interaction of four things. And that is exactly how it works out, friends. \u201cOur reading of Scripture is always in a tetralectic, a four-way conversation among these four resources\u201d (173). Think about this very long and a few things happen, not the least of which is a little humility about our claims. And this tetralectic involves not just Scripture but our \u201cinterpretations\u201d of Scripture (174).
\nBut God \u201cremains the Lord who grants us what he pleases in order to accomplish what he pleases: that is the Christian epistemic hope\u201d (175).
\nAnd Stackhouse believes the Holy Spirit is at work in this tetralectic.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christian realism steers a course between the Anabaptist vision of the kingdom being achieved, more rather than less, in the church and the Constantinian vision of the kingdom joining hips with the State. Now, of course, there is a spectrum from one end to the other, but Realism is flat-out in the middle. And this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1732],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-public-issues"],"yoast_head":"\nChristian Realism 5<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Christian realism steers a course between the Anabaptist vision of the kingdom being achieved, more rather than less, in the church and the Constantinian\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/06\/10\/christian-realism-5\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Christian Realism 5\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Christian realism steers a course between the Anabaptist vision of the kingdom being achieved, more rather than less, in the church and the Constantinian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/06\/10\/christian-realism-5\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-06-10T05:30:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&l=ur2&o=1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/06\/10\/christian-realism-5\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/06\/10\/christian-realism-5\/\",\"name\":\"Christian Realism 5\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2008-06-10T05:30:18+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2008-06-10T05:30:18+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"Christian realism steers a course between the Anabaptist vision of the kingdom being achieved, more rather than less, in the church and the Constantinian\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/06\/10\/christian-realism-5\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/06\/10\/christian-realism-5\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/06\/10\/christian-realism-5\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Christian Realism 5\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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