This is Getting Obnoxious . . .

I feel like I'm having my 3rd "going out of business" sale this week - but dramatic exits aside, I did want to follow up my exit with a brief explanation. You'll notice that I didn't offer one initially - I should have kn0wn better. My church experiences over the last few years has been a poignant reminder that a vacuum of explanation will always be filled by spurious data - controversy is always more fun than reality.

I'm not throwing in the turban because I'm as sensitive as some might believe me to be - I have ample chest hair, and a stunning capacity for dead-lifting heavy objects. All that to say I would hate for you to imagine me slumped over my keyboard, crying like Gidget on a date gone wrong at my poor reception in the blogosphere. I've been warmly welcomed and respectfully recieved by most.

I would also hate for anyone to imagine that I'm selling the silverware over various rhetorical scuffles on PyroManiacs. I do have to admit, however, that it's not long before my presence in the meta renews old frustrations - but I'm never under the illusion that I'm not asking for it. I know what I'm going to hear before I go over there, and yet I persist, to their puzzlement and sometimes mine. Am I just looking for attention, or do I really think that they'll reverse some of the strongest and dearest convictions they hold in life? Although I can't say that I ever enjoy the often curt, sometimes dissmissive and usually immediate evaluations of my comments (as though they were simply my "answers" waiting to be checked by their "answer key"), my real reasons for showing up aren't spoken often enough - I really do love most of what I read there. I happen to find insatiable delight in the exaltation of God's sovereign majesty. As often as I am frustrated by various disagreements, I am pleasantly surprised by posts which don't fit the caricature of the Reformed Baptist obsession with doctrine for doctrine's sake (such as James' recent post on the Messiah and Justice - actually pretty much everything James says, some of Frank Turk's stuff on missions and Phil's interaction with Michael Spencer in the comments to this post). Some trusted friends have told me to stay away - but I can't. I agree with so much (let God be my judge!) that I long for genuine interaction on the points with which I don't agree. I'm sure that there are a few patrons of the Pyros who would sneer at that, but I've recieved the strangest (and kindest!) emails from those who foolishly fuel the hope of that possibility (which is hindered every bit as much by me as it is Phil Johnson)!

But, that brings me to the real reason for my limey fork-flinging to come to an end - I answered someone who asked if it was the way I was being treated by Phil and Tim Bayly that "broke the camels back" (I feel like throwing in a "as it were" somewhere around here, just for Tim). I answered "yes and no". Hopefully the above can help to fill in the "no" a little. But, now for the "yes": I started blogging because I like to read - not Sweet Valley High, not The Grapes of Wrath, not The Prayer of Jabez, and God help me, not even the better devotional literature - I like to read books which are directly related to the personal discovery of Bible study: books on method - theological, hermeneutical, ethical, historical and grammatical. It's my only real hobby. That's not something to brag about, either - I've heard Solomon's warning (Ec. 12:12) and I believe in its wisdom. I'll not bore anyone trying to convince them that it's my love for the treasure I have in Scripture that fuels my desire in this way; and I'll certainly not waste any time trying not to sound pedantic or self-important (too late). Let's just say that "academic respectability" isn't really something I'm all that worried about in a small church where most of my constituents could care less about "variegated nomism". I'm painfully aware that 1) it's not like I've read bags of academic books 2) that sort of interest is one very small part of the Christian life 3) I've not necessarily understood a single thing I've read - but that's where the blog was supposed to come in. I wanted a forum to log my thoughts and recieve feedback with a view toward processing what happens to strike me in the reading. And all of that, of course, was with a view toward growing in my ability to understand and apply Scripture.

Yet, after about a year on the blogosphere I've discovered something (partially through PyroManiacs, but elsewhere as well): being in process is something you're not really allowed to do in public when it comes to theology - at least not in the theo-blogging community. My church family allows me the room to grow in my leadership skills, my preaching, my marriage, my parenting and any number of sanctification issues. Growth in these areas take both time and experience. You can't simulate it by repeating someone else's preaching style, mimicking someone else's relationships, carbon-copying someone else's parenting techniques, etc. But when it comes to theological stimulation on the internet, it seems as though the growth is expected to take place all at once. Very few bloggers allow people to "work through" theological convictions without enormous suspicion. When you are handed a particular set of convictions and told that it is the truth, you may, if you're lucky, be told how such a person arrived at it. But once you attempt to get there yourself, by the power of your own conviction (asking questions and challenging what sounds funny) it's assumed that you are aiding (if not identifying yourself with) the enemies of the truth. It's as though someone were snapping their fingers saying, "Have a perfect marriage - NOW!!!" and then accusing you of rebellion for not complying immediately.

Please hear me right there - I'm not talking about trying to re-invent the foundational truths expressed in the earliest creeds and consensus, or the plainest saving truths about the Gospel - but in trying to evaluate the theological proposals of other Christians according to Scripture, and in trying to reexamine my own theology according to the Scriptures, I'm realizing that what people want to see isn't that you're INTERESTED in the answer, or that you're wrestling with Scripture in COMING to the answer, it's that you HAVE IT ALREADY. The general lack of willingness to let you get there, or patiently walk with you in the process makes this whole exercise seem like more of a loss than a win for me, and it felt like time to cut my losses.

The fear of relativism (which may in fact be one of the most deplorable evils of our time) seems to result in impatient frustration with Christians who question them about their interpretations or theological convictions. More than that, the moment a person stops to ask (in faith!) "have I missed something that the Scriptures teach about justification or the Gospel?" its bemoaned that the postmodernists have won. The question itself is viewed as a fickle willingness to forsake the Gospel instead of a faithful desire to hear God and not ourselves in Scripture. And that strikes at the core of what it means for me to believe in the Bible's authority - namely that in my study it always maintains the right to say I'm wrong.

The fact is that I know what I believe - but I want the Scriptures to have the authority to scrutinize my beliefs in practice, not just in theory (as do many of those with whom I disagree). Sadly, I genuinely don't know how to demonstrate that on the blogosphere without alienating those whose theology happens to be the most like mine. It just seems like more grief than it's worth. Anyway, hopefully that helps to explain the departure. Thanks again for your well-wishing.


It wasn't very well thought out, it certainly wasn't carefully edited - but it's REALLY the last one.


Really.

Stick a Fork in Me, I'm Done!

If you need me, I'll be pawning your mom's silverware . . .

. . . but I didn't write it. It comes from Mike Bird, who has some great stuff to say, as usual. Here's a post he did recently about why he's neither a fundamentalist nor a liberal. Found myself saying 'amen', so I thought I'd re-post it here for your encouragement. If you decide to leave feedback, do comment on his site as well!

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Fundamentalist versus Liberal

In light of the recent posts by Ben Myers and Chris Tilling I thought I'd add my own thoughts.

Preliminary Remarks

1. Most persons who use the term "fundamentalist" pejoratively are simply ignorant of the historical circumstances surrounding the origins of fundamentalism as a theological movement in North America in the early 20th century. Many are also ill informed about the historical, theological and cultural differences between Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism - the two cannot be equated.

2. The terms "fundamentalist" and "liberal" are often used these days as an opprobrium but they have also become relative terms, i.e. a fundamentalist is someone more conservative than me and a liberal is someone less conservative than me. (I've been called both!) To make things worse, Old Liberalism was a package and you could easily discover an Old Liberal based on certain questions, e.g. virgin birth, inerrancy, resurrection, atonement, etc. But today there are a number of theologians who don't quite fit the bill, e.g. Rowan Williams. William's has an orthodox view of the resurrection (as far as I can tell), but his views of sexuality are as liberal as Hillary Clinton speaking at an ACLU convention. In sum, other than being an insult, the terms fundamentalist and liberal don't really mean much anymore.

3. The Fundamentalis vesus Liberal controversy was really a symptom of Christianity wrestling with the challenges posed by modernity. There were two reactions to modernity: "run for the hills and hide your daughters" (Fundamentalists) or "wine me and dine me" (Liberals). As we enter into a Postmodern period the liberal versus fundametnalist controversy is no longer the defining issue for Western Christianity.

See further:

- Carl F. Henry, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (1947)
- George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture (1980)

Why I'm not a Fundamentalist

1. Fundamentalists major on the minors, and make minor issues tests for faith and orthodoxy (e.g. alchol, Bible translations, etc).

2. Fundamentalists fail to distinguish between what is Christian and what is the cultural Christianity that they were nurtured on.

3. Fundamentalists fail to distinguishy between areas of conviction and areas of command, and treat areas of conscience as a test of orthodoxy.

4. Fundamentalists have a view of Scripture that is docetic in that Scripture is divine but it is not human - no human processes (e.g. the Synoptic problem) are compatible with divine authorship.

5. Fundamentalists preach the authority of the text but practice the authority of the community.

6. Fundamentalists fails to appreciate the different genres of the Bible or comprehend the role of presuppositions in influencing our reading of Scripture.

7. Fundamentalists believe in theological cloning rather than theological learning.

8. Fundamentalists fail to be the salt of the earth as they are concerned almost exclusively with the minutia of doctrinal purity and correctness.

9. Fundamentalists have a lopsided soteriology as they think of salvation as purely the salvation of souls for heaven rather than the liberation of persons from sin, sickness, subjugation, and death. They aim for decisions rather than making disciples.

10. Fundamentalists fail to recognize the true marks of the Church and allow for a diversity of voices within the body of Christ.

11. Fundamentalists are more excited about what they are against, than what they are for.

12. Fundamentalists regard the Spirit as a theological entity, but not as a presence that manifests itself in worship or loving community.

Why I'm Not a Liberal

1. Liberals mimic culture to the point that they simply imitate the contemporary values of the day and wrap them up in some Christian wrapping paper. The world looks on and says, "Thanks for affirming all of my values but you can keep the wrapping paper".

2. Liberals minor on the majors - sin, atonement, and resurrection.

3. Liberals have a view of Scripture that is Arrian - it is human but not divine.

4. Liberals take Scripture to be illustrative but not necessarily prescriptive and normative for faith and praxis.

5. Liberals deny the transforming power of the gospel to liberate persons from every form of sin.

6. Liberals minimize the unique revelation of God in Christ and deny the eschatological finality of Jesus Christ.

7. The Gospel of Liberalism was what Karl Rahner warned us of: A God without wrath takes men without sin to a kingdom without judgment.

8. Liberals de-historize and de-apocalypticize the message of the Prophets, Jesus and the Apostles.

9. Liberals preach pluralism but do not tolerate anyone who fails to embrace their pluralistic ethos.

10. Liberals believe the Spirit is a Spirit of unity but not a Spirit of truth.

11. Liberals think that the only heresy is to believe in heresy.

12. Liberals think that the church is about programs and structures, when it is about creating gospel-proclaiming, Spirit-drive, Christ-centred, God-focused redemptive communities.

Macular Degeneration

I hate to admit it, but I'm petering out. I'm staring at a screen for sermon prep and Bible Study creation all week long, and the thought of going home to blog makes my eyes want to vomit. By the end of the week they feel like Gandalf's description of the eye of Sauron - "wreathed in flame and lidless". Good luck getting Visine to work on that. But more than that, there's so much to comment upon and so little time to attend to it that I've finally decided to give blogging a break for a bit, at least until I've hit a stride with some of my other responsibilities. I know I'll be back soon, though, if for no other reason than that my brief absence from the blogosphere has already saddled my conscience with an unbearable pressure to sit down and spray text about a million different topics - James Crossley's post about secularism in Biblical Studies, Adrian Warnock's comments on the interchange between iMonk and Phil Johnson (and iMonk's fantastic follow up post), common confusion about propositions, modernism and the Enlightenment (scroll down to the end of the page), my brother's acceptance into Princeton, Michael Bird's excellent upcoming article in Tyndale Bulletin, evaluations of some competing proposals for the ecumenical task, exciting developments in Bible Software and of course, brief blurts about the books I'm currently reading (especially Francis Watson's Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith and Alasdair Macintyre's After Virtue). I'm sometimes seized with a kind of catatonic schizophrenia in the middle of a conversation while thinking about something I'd like to write, but I never seem to find the time to successfully log them in at Soylent Green; I'm tired of saved half-drafts that I just delete in frustration at not having enough time to finish them.

But the catharsis will have to wait until at least mid-April when the house we're building is completed and I've moved out of my gracious mother-in-law's home. In the meantime, I hope you'll not forget about me!

And now, for a moment of complete non-sequitur - I've tried to find a reason to post pictures of my family for some time now, but wasn't able to generate one that didn't sound like an entry from my diary. So, for absolutely no reason at all, here they are: My wife and I, my daughter Madelyne, my son Sameer and my youngest, Raj.

The Faithful Forgiveness of God

The pixelated beauty to my immediate left is a chap named Timothy Gombis, who currently teaches Bible at Cedarville University in Ohio. Though I know that a few other blogs (not least Metalepsis) have already posted the following meditation on their own sites, I thought it was worth reproducing here as well. Tim's a good friend and a great guy who could easily bench press a car of your choosing with both of our mothers sitting in it. Keep that in mind if you have any comments.
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Our texts for this week reveal to us the logic of God's forgiveness. They also reveal to us our own ways with forgiveness and perhaps why we have such a hard time coming to grips with God's outrageous grace. These texts serve as a pleasant and stunning surprise, a blessed rebuke.

We foolishly think that we have God all figured out, don't we? We think that we know how He deals with sinners, what He's like, how He thinks. What is God like? Well, He's mostly like us, except totally huge, and He knows everything. And He told us what is right and wrong, so if we choose to do wrong, He'll be rightly outraged at us - because He told us not to do it, and we should've known better.

But, thankfully, He has made a way for us to be forgiven, and if we're willing to clean up our act, make things right, He's willing to consider taking us back. But He'll keep His eye on us, and if we blow it again..., well, we might want to read the fine print in our contract.

We may not lay out our understanding of God so explicitly, but we often feel that this is what God is like, right? He's very huge and powerful, and his heart isn't as small as that of the Grinch who stole Christmas - whose heart was two sizes too small - but surely it's not THAT big - after all, there's gotta be some limit to forgiveness and grace.

In thinking about God in this way, we have managed to become complete idolaters; we have made God in our own image. What is He like? What's His forgiveness like? Probably like ours.
Scripture, however, turns this idolatry on its head, giving us a true glimpse into the ways of God with His people. We will discover what these texts tell us about the forgiveness of God by asking and answering three questions.

First, why does God forgive sins? Because this is who He is! It is His identity, according to the final verse in our Isaiah passage: "I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins." It is who God is, it is what He does - it's His calling card; He forgives sins!

And He loves to forgive! Our Isaiah text depicts God going to great lengths to overcome our sin and to arrange situations in such a way so that we might more effectively enjoy His love. In fact, what makes God angry in the Isaiah passage, is that Israel refused to give God opportunities to forgive. "Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob; but you have been weary of me, O Israel!"

So God forgives because it is his very nature to do so - and he DELIGHTS to forgive sinners.
These texts force us to ask a second question: Is this really so? How can we be sure about this? Does he really love to forgive, or does He do it dragging His feet? When God forgives sins, does he do it while rolling his eyes?

And we want to know, because this is how WE forgive, isn't it? "Well, I know I'm supposed to forgive you, so I guess I do. But I don't have to like it!! And I don't have to like you!! I'm still angry for what you've done to me, so you need to spend a few more days in the doghouse until you get completely back in my favor."

And we think that by holding on to bitterness against those who have wronged us we're only showing proper righteous anger at sin. "It's a godly anger at sin, alright?!"

So, in the somewhat mystifying words of the 2 Corinthians text, our forgiveness is "yes and no." We do, but we don't... We forgive..., but we'll just see how things go.

But God is completely unlike us - He is faithful and His word is NOT "yes and no," but YES!!
How do we know it's "yes" and not "yes and no?"

Look at Jesus!! Listen to how outrageous this is - God Himself came into the world, fully participated in the broken human condition, and died. And God raised Jesus from the dead to confirm His promises - to show that he is SERIOUS about forgiveness, SERIOUS about redemption and restoration.

God is fully committed to us - He is not of two minds!! He is not mostly committed to us, but we'll see how things go.

Jesus is the YES of God to us. There is no indecision with God toward his people.
"In Jesus it is always 'Yes.' For in him every one of God's promises is a 'yes.' For this reason it is through Jesus that we say the 'Amen', to the glory of God."

And this is gospel - this is good news, because we know ourselves. We know our sinful hearts, and it is so easy to believe the lie that it's a long road back to God's good graces. It's hard work getting back into his favor. But this is only true if God is like us - thanks be to God that He is not.
The third question that these texts raise and answer is; What must be done to obtain forgiveness?

This is answered in several ways in these Scripture passages, but I love how the Gospel reading answers it - especially when we think about how we usually read these gospel texts.

We typically read this scene where Jesus heals the man lowered through the roof in such an unreal manner. The guys run their friend up to the roof on a stretcher, remove a skylight, install a system of pulleys to the roof and smoothly lower him down - and, of course, he's reclining comfortably - and plop him nicely down in front of Jesus who then conducts this interchange with him and the scribes, to the quiet approval of all those watching, who close the scene with the polite applause of spectators at a golf tournament.

This is, of course, pure fantasy. Think about this scene. It's from Mark, a very gritty Gospel - full of action and pulsing with tension. These men hear that Jesus is at home, so they grab their friend and carry him down narrow streets, bumping his head on stone walls as they twist and turn down the alleyways, and arrive at Jesus' house. They're probably all disheveled and their lame friend is very uncomfortable and very likely in great pain, at this point.

"Ugh! The house is crowded, what're we going to do?! Let's go through the roof!"

"What?! Are you crazy?!"

So they drag him up to the roof, tear apart the roof, with stuff falling down all over the people inside, who are probably not at all happy that these strangers are doing a demo-job on Jesus' house - and while Jesus is teaching!

But so what?! We gotta get to Jesus! They lower him down...how?! With what!? We don't know - rope? His clothes? Again, this guy can't be all that comfortable at this point. But, as it happens, there he is, lying on the floor, on his mat.

And then what happens...

Jesus, taking note of their faith, says to the man, "your sins are forgiven."
This story is so familiar to us, we have completely missed how bizarre this is!! Think of all the commotion and the dust and dirt, stuff from the roof falling all over the people down below, people shooting dirty looks up at the guys who just lowered some street person down onto Jesus' IKEA coffee table..., it's crazy!

There is so much going on here, but we must take note of two things:

First, the phrase "when Jesus saw their faith." How often have we read this as, "when Jesus saw their qualifications?" Why did Jesus heal the man, we ask? Because of their great faith - Jesus looked into their hearts and saw that they had great faith!! So we too must have great faith!
NO!! What displayed their faith? Simply this - that they knew they needed something, and that Jesus could help them. That's it. "We're in need, Jesus is near, let's go."

Just like Psalm 32, v. 6: "I confessed my sin, and you forgave the guilt of my sin." That's it - recognition of our sin, forgiveness granted by God. There's no middle step of elaborate performance or credential-checking.

The second thing to note is Jesus' response to witnessing this bizarre instance of breaking and entering that unfolds before him: The dust starts to settle, the people all look at Jesus, He looks at the men, and says to the man, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

No discussion, no questions, no checking of credentials, no theological sparring. No fancy introductory speech, just a total outcast lowered into Jesus' living room, staring dumbfounded at Jesus while he has his sins forgiven by the King of creation.

The lesson here is this: God's hair-trigger response is set to forgive. Call on the Lord, and He will forgive. Intrude on Jesus' personal space, make yourself a nuisance to Jesus, and he'll forgive your sins.

On what basis does God forgive? Recognize your need and call on him and he'll forgive. End of discussion.

God delights to forgive, is angry that his people won't give him opportunities to forgive! God loves to show mercy, so "be glad you righteous, and rejoice in the Lord."

Reformed Epistemology and Narrative Theology

SINCE THIS ARTICLE GOT SUCH LITTLE FEEDBACK (being sandwiched between two more "controversial" posts on the Master's Seminary's take on Emergent), I THOUGHT I'D MOVE IT UP HERE AND HOPE IT GETS SOME MORE ATTENTION!

It's been my suspicion as of late that much of what narrative theology has to offer by way of answering the problems of Enlightenment modernism comport well with the presuppositional style of Reformed apologetics. While browsing through my Theological Journal Disc I came across an intriguing article by David Kelly Clark called "Narrative Theology and Apologetics" (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, no. 36 (1993): 4). I remember enjoying reading Clark in my apologetics and evangelism class while in seminary.

In this article Clark, a presuppositionalist apologist and Reformed philosopher of religion, described both the promise and the pitfalls of narrative theology. He draws upon the interchange between Hans Frei and Carl F. H. Henry, giving an even-handed appraisal of the benefits of both approaches. After giving considerable time to pointing out the potential problems with narrative approaches (1. the unclear nature of what that might mean, 2. the detachment of narrative approaches from history 3. conceputal realtivism, "too much Wittgenstein") he goes on to say: "Despite all this, narrative theology does have some things right. Evangelical apologists would do well to develop their thought and strategy in light of these themes . . .":

1) Narrative theology focuses on concrete modes of understnading and communication - traditional apologetics are too abstractly philosophical

2) It encourages us to learn how to work in relativistic and pluralistic milleus - narrative can translate biblical truth into postmodern models of rationality without giving in to relativism

3) It highlights how difficult and complex apologetics really is - modernistic apologetics often prove futile in postmodern contexts

4) It promotes a flexible apologetic strategy, one that responds to particular needs in specific situations - Clark says, "The validity of a multiple-perspectives approach at a limited level (though not at the comprehensive level of worldviews) offers the apologist some flexibility in argument even though the goal, an experience with Jesus Christ, remains constant."

5) It allows for more varied sorts of evidence, including religious experiences - shedding straitjackets of foundationalist (evidentialist) critiera for knowledge means introducing the reality of religious experience can count as evidence.

6) It alerts us to the uniqueness of Christian thinking - narrative approaches refuse to imbibe secular standards for rationality

7) It reminds us that apologists often assume much cultural baggage - Clark says, "at our point in history this baggage includes Enlightenment foundationalism . . . if general culture shifts to postmodernism, however, those we meet may hold cultural presuppositions of which we are utterly unaware."

8) It suggests possibilities for significant cross-cultural apologetics - Again, Clark: "Let us build Christian defense not on traditions that are dying even in the west but on culturally appropriate understandings and strategies."

After concluding that "several significant movements are writing prapgraphs in the Enlightenment's obituary. In philosophy, Reformed epistemologists are decisively demonstrating the self-referential incoherence of classical foundationalism", Clark goes on to say "evangelical apologetics must adapt to a postmodern context. This does not mean jumping on bandwagons or chasing fads. It does mean concieving of apologetics so it functions in the conteporary mileu."

Is it possible to take what's good from narrative approaches while refusing to pitch notions of historicity (i.e., "it doesn't matter if Christ 'really' rose from the dead, it's entering the narrative world that counts) or cave to relativistic tendencies (i.e. "different stories have different criteria for rationality within those narrative worlds")? I hope so! While narrative theology isn't a panacea, it has exerted many positive effects on Biblical studies which shouldn't be neglected, least of all in its response to radical Biblical criticism. Conservative approaches by Kevin Vanhoozer, Joel Green, Richard Hays and others have attempted to develop these insights without falling into the ditch of postmodernist skepticism.

Jesus Is Lord

I was recently incited to worship by a paper given by Marianne Meye Thompson. It was about the Lordship of Jesus, which is something I've been thinking about lately, and since I'm terribly busy this week I thought I'd reproduce part of it here for your reading enjoyment, hoping it will have the same effect on you.

By the way, in reading the following don't get too nonplussed by her comments about meeting those of "other religions" with kindness and acceptance. Remember she says "as much as one can", and realize that the rest of her article makes it pretty clear that she believes salvation can be found nowhere else but in Christ alone. The balance of honoring what's true and correcting all that errs in the worldview of others follows Paul's own pattern in addressing the Gentiles (Acts 17:22-34).


Our context is no more pluralistic than was the context of Paul or of any of the apostles who lived, worked, and taught in the Roman empire of the first century of this era. Although people are fond of saying so, we do not live in unprecedented times. The world of the early church knew of the claims that there were indeed “many lords and many gods.” There were claims for the gods of nationalism and power, such as the Ceasars and Rome; for the various gods of foreign and mystery cults, such as Isis and Osiris; local and civic deities, such as Athena, Artemis, and Apollo; the gods of chance and fate, such as fortune, fate, and luck; and the generic life force of the universe. Precisely in the context of such claims, Paul affirmed that there is “one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ.” Our world, too, knows of “many lords and many gods” – and many of them take the same form as they did in Paul’s own day – nationalism, foreign deities, fate and fortune, and the pantheistic belief that all is God. In the ancient world, Christianity provided an alternative to the shapeless confusion of antiquity; in the modern world, it can provide the same alternative, but only if it articulates the gospel clearly.

In such a world, it is urgent that the Church have the courage to speak its belief in the one Lord, for this is the content of the Gospel. In making this proclamation, it must be clear that it does not seek to add another deity to the pluralistic mix, but that it intends to bear witness to the Lord who is “above every name,” for he is the one whom God has “set above all rule and authority, all power and dominion.” In other words, the foundation of the church’s confession and proclamation who Jesus is, through God’s mercy and grace, for all the world and also for us. The confession that Jesus is “my personal Lord” is not the same as the confession “he is Lord.” And unless we truly believe that he is Lord, we ought not to make the confession he is “my Lord,” because to do so is tantamount to idolatry, honoring one lord among many lords.

As one author put it, “To assert today that the one Creator God has revealed himself fully and finally in Jesus Christ is to risk criticism on the grounds of arrogance or intolerance. The mission of the church, however, does not commit Christians to the proposition that there is no truth to be found in other religions. All philosophies or religions which have some ‘fit’ with the created world will thereby reflect in some ways the truth of God. [This] does not, however, imply that they are therefore, as they stand, doorways into the new creation. That place … is Christ’s alone” (N. T. Wright, Colossians and Philemon [Leicester: Inter-Varsity; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986], p 79).

If the church compromises its witness to the Lordship of Christ, then it has ceased to be the church of Jesus Christ. But in proclaiming and living this news as good news, we must be certain that our mode of confession matches the trajectory of the self-giving and self-emptying of the crucified one who loved us and gave himself for us. So question 52 of the Study Catechism asks, “How should I treat non-Christians and people of other religions?” Answer: As much as I can, I should meet friendship with friendship, hostility with kindness, generosity with gratitude, persecution with forbearance, truth with agreement, and error with truth. I should express my faith with humility and devotion as the occasion requires, whether silently or openly, boldly or meekly, by word or by deed. I should avoid compromising the truth on the one hand and being narrow-minded on the other. In short, I should always welcome and accept these others in a way that honors and reflects the Lord’s welcome and acceptance of me.”

If this is what the catechism asks of us in relationship to people of other religions, how much more should we deal with friendship, kindness, generosity, and forbearance with our sisters and brothers in Christ. In other words, the virtue we must seek to cultivate is not the American virtue of tolerance, but the biblical virtue of humility. Humility is not the same as tolerance, for humility recognizes that a word of judgment may always be addressed to us, and that there are logs in our own eyes which we need to remove. Humility is the stance that we, as those who are united in baptism to the death and resurrection of our Lord, must seek. We have a long ways to go before we show the kind of compassionate and courageous love which Jesus demonstrated to the tax collectors and sinners as he welcomed them to his table. We forget the scandalous character of his act, as we forget the shameful character of his death on the cross, which he endured for us while we were yet sinners . There will be a profound irony and, indeed, shame if those of us who insist most vociferously that “Jesus is Lord” are also known to be characterized by a lack of humility and love.

But as the catechism states we must also “meet error with truth.” There is no formula — nor has there ever been — a formula for how one measures and mixes truth and forbearance. Paul’s unflagging commitment and unfailing compassion can remind us that we can never compromise on our zeal for truth —or for forbearance. This is neither an easy road to walk nor an easy witness to bear. But let us also be reminded that where the church fails to hold fast to its commitment to Christ as Lord, and therefore to hold and speak this truth in the humility of Christ himself, the loss is not only ours, or the church’s, but also the world’s.

What Do They Mean By "Story"?

One of the many confusions amidst Old Princeton-style pastors and theologians concerning postconservative and postliberal models is in regard to the word "story" or "narrative". Common misconstruals of contemporary use of these terms include seeing them as genre categories, or as a subjective "feelings-oriented" approach to life and the text of Scripture. Another tendency is to see the invocation of "narrative" as fundamentally opposed to historical fact; thus Hans Frei has been labelled a "liberal" because of his seemingly ambivalent disposition toward whether the events in Scripture "actually happened". The same sorts of accusations have been levelled at Barth in a previous generation. With these words in greater currency among theologians, along with the more opaque "metanarrative", which is used to talk about everything from very important stories to "worldview" in general, it might be helpful to settle on some working definitions.

Firstly, references to "story" are emphatically NOT the arbitrary exaltation of one type of Biblical literature over another, such as propositional or poetic genres. While attention is typically drawn to the overwhelming percentage of the Bible that is actually in narrative form, this point should be seen as supporting a larger claim about the fundamental nature of reality itself. Instead of seeing our world through the a canon of abstract universal laws, detached from any particularity, these theologians are claiming that the make-up of our rationality is itself a "storied" one. Our attempt to make sense out of data is to fit it into our understanding of our individual stories as well as our broader story of the world. Every individual sees the world as inhabited by key characters interacting in such a way as to drive forward a plot. Our understanding of the world has a beginning, it carries on according to the plot with various themes weaving in and out of it as challenges are overcome toward some desired final conclusion. Nothing, it is said, is exempt from this sort of thinking, no matter how empirically detached it may appear. Scientists carry on according to their own "grand metaphysical stories" by which they can make sense out of notions like "progress". Because the structure of our minds is story-like, our observations of the world are always "storied" observations - and in that sense there is no "way it is" apart from the way these events are interpreted by and fit into our understanding of "the story".

These claims impact biblical intepretation and theologizing because they reverse the priority of explanation in doing theology: instead of appealing to abstract "attributes of God", soteriological concepts, etc. and then using individual accounts in Scripture as illustrations of these definitions, narrative theology commends particular stories about God as our primary definitions with the propositional content being the commentary. Our doctrine of redemption isn't an abstract category in which "God's purchasing sinners by the death and resurrection of Christ" is one instance - we only know what redemption is because of Christ's death and resurrection! God isn't omnipotent with specific instances of God acting powerfully in the Bible - those instances define what we mean by omnipotent (a definition which includes powerfully conquering sin through weakness on the cross). In this way postmodernism's critique of "Enlightenment rationalism", which claims to operate without cultural factors and biased accounts of the world (like stories), happens to share presuppositionalist critiques against evidentialism and Christianity's critiques of secular science.

But isn't this idea antithetical to postmodernism? Isn't Christianity a "metanarrative"? Lyotard's famous definition of postmondernism, namely "an incredulity toward metanarratives", isn't the denial of this - that there are these larger stories in which people see the world - it is, at least according to Merold Westphal, rather the rejection of "totalizing" accounts which say that their view of the world is outside the mediation of a narrative. It is, as it has elsewhere been called, "the view from nowhere". Thus whilie many theologians continue to use the word in reference to a "worldview", making Lyotard's conception of postmodernism the utter denial of "grand stories" of the world (like Christianity), it might actually be rather the opposite; namely a denial of scientific rationalism that can open a space for Christianity as a "worldview". Christians don't take the Gospel writers to be recording what happened in a detached way - they're writing theologically, describing the events of Jesus' life as part of a larger narrative of God's work in the world. They weren't simply robotic biographers, noting details for the sake of accuracy - they were heralds of the Son of God, proclaiming His arrival, death and resurrection in order to defeat sin and death. Moreover, any attempt to get "behind" the text to reconstruct what really happened (something conservatives do through excessive harmonization and liberals do through radical biblical criticism) isn't a way of achieving "what really happened"; it's simply another ideologically motivated account which competes with the Gospels ideologically motivated account. All history-telling is revisionist. One either chooses to believe the account given by the Gospels as a product of divine inspiration, or one chooses to weave one's own equally ideological account.

So how does story relate to historicity? Isn't concieving as Christianity, and the Gospels in particular, as "story" tantamount to denying that anything actually happened in time and space? In Hans Frei's 1987 exchange with Carl F. H. Henry, the issue of historicity obviously became a central part of Henry's critique. Consider Frei's response, which I'll quote at length:

Of course I believe in the “historical reality” of Christ’s death and resurrection, if those are the categories which we employ. But they weren’t always the categories employed by the church. There was a time when the church didn’t talk about “the Jesus of history” and “the Christ of faith.” There was a time when we didn’t talk, as many people have talked for nearly two hundred years now, about Jesus Christ being “a particular historical event.” And it may well be that even scholars won’t be using those particular terms so casually and in so self-evident a fashion for much longer. In other words, while I believe that those terms may be apt, I do not believe, as Dr. Henry apparently does, that they are as theory-free, as neutral as he seems to think they are. I do not think that the concept”fact” is theory-neutral. I do not think that the concept “probability” is theory-neutral. I do not think that we will talk theologically in those terms, perhaps, in another two generations. We didn’t talk that way 300 years ago. One talked in that day and time much more nearly about one person in two natures, undivided, but also unconfused. And that was just as adequate and just as inadequate a way of talking. If I am asked to use the language of factuality, then I would say, yes, in those terms, I have to speak of an empty tomb. In those terms I have to speak of the literal resurrection. But I think those terms are not privileged, theory-neutral, trans-cultural, an ingredient in the structure of the human mind and of reality always and everywhere for me, as I think they are for Dr. Henry.

Frei was pointing out that the language of "factuality", divorced from distinctly Christian ways of talking, is to import an ideology - namely that of the Enlightenment rationalism which dominates biblical criticism - into the discussion to the neglect of the biblical text. Apologetics and criticism concerning the "historicity" of the Gospels took the authoritative focus from the Gospels and placed it upon the historians' own reconstruction, whether conservative or liberal. And that, thought Frei, was the chasm between the text and the reader which one ought not to fall into.

Again, in reading Frei I hope you can hear the faint but shrill voices of Van Til and Schaeffer crying out against the evangelical acceptance of the "brute fact" and the "theory-neutrual", "common ground" interpretations which we claim to reject in our apologetics. I also hope you can discern the difference between this boldly Christian approach and the subjective existentialism with which it's often wrongly associated (as recently as in a popular lecture series I've just heard). These, and not some other touchy-feely motives, or parroting of "Phil Donahue" (talk about a generational insult!) are what drive many "emerging Christians" to speak so passionately about the importance of "story" and how Christians fit into it.

There are, of course, some difficulties with seeing the theological task this way (as there are with the "Old Princeton" hyper-propositionalism), but I'll leave those for the comments (and the mostly ignored previous post about David Kelly Clark and narrative theology)!

My Last Post on TMS and Emergent

I'm not a self-proclaimed superhero fighting for accuracy and fairness in scholarship. I'm a self-proclaimed superhero who flings forks and speaks with a fake Brittish accent. But lest anyone think that my previous concerns about the latest faculty lecture series was motivated out of either a) a secret longing to be emergent b) a secret longing to be liked by "the emerging" c) a secret longing to give my children in marriage to emerging Christians or d) a self-righteous desire to be viewed as academically acceptable and "with it" or e) some other self-righteous desire to correct those who annoy me, allow me to clearly state my incredibly self-interested reason for being so irritated by the misrepresentation:

These lectures get used to weed out and destroy not just ministries who believe the views being condemned, but those who don't get in line and fire off the same strong rhetoric. That's not a theory. It's happened to us, and it's happened to several other graduates I know. The problem isn't that I've lost my respect for MacArthur and written him off - it's the opposite. I continue to refer to him in a praiseworthy way so that when he says that some label ("the New Perspective" or "Emergent" or whatever) represents the next thing rolling off the anti-Christ assembly line, those who love him (rightly) take anything less than his wholesale rejection as partnering with the Devil and possibly golfing with him on Wednesday afternoons. Hear that again - the problem with his presentation is that it encourages people to think that anyone who offers a more mild critique, or who chooses to focus on what can be learned from the movement without adopting its failures, is every bit as heretical as the most extreme elements of it.

In other words, practically speaking, the fruit of true belief becomes something other than faith in Christ evidenced in the fruit of the Spirit. A believer (or a minister) must now not only accept a basic statement of faith, but reject and denounce entire movements and organizations in order to be considered worthy of fellowship. That, my friends, is heresy. Do a word study for "factious" in Titus 3:10, and you'll know what I mean. Its divisive fruit can be seen in the way churches have been devestated, not for adopting the views being criticized, but for refusing to condemn people who see some good in it. Those who do not say "I am of MacArthur" (cf. 1 Co. 1:10-17) on the issue are thrown onto the pile of burning liberals in the valley of Hinnom. Again, this isn't a theoretical observation. My church has been torn apart by those sporting this attitude in respect to the last faculty lecture series (on the NPP). In other words, the reason I've been thrown to the wolves in my ministry in the past isn't because I don't respect these men, but precisely because I do. I'm fully aware that the divisive and decietful actions taken by those who use these lectures can't be laid at the doorstep of the ones giving them, but I'm not willing to say that they have no responsibility for the way that their words will be used.

So, for the record, when I've begged for more measured words, some more acknowledgements of positive contributions, and more nuanced critique, it's not out of some abstract or pedantic longing for "academic integrity" - it's certainly not out of bitterness. It is, instead, out of a) a genuine longing for God's kingdom to be advanced through a local ministry which is entirely focused on the advancement of the Gospel and b) an intimate knowledge of the consequences of these presentations which ultimately hinder that work among Biblically faithful ministries (to the discouragement of even those who make them).

One final note - anyone who responds to this post by reminding me that "the NPP redefines the Gospel" or "the Emergent Church doesn't know the Gospel" has already missed the point. The spectrum represented in both movements have valuable contributions to offer, and we can safely leave aside the extremes and obvious errors. There are also various elements in both movements (NPP and Emergent) that believers may safely disagree about without invoking the word "heresy" or "separation". Yet as much as they might be grieved by it, the effect of these sorts of presentations is just as often irrational suspicion as it is "discernment" (though offenders will often equate the two). Ultimately no amount of protesting and clarifying one's position from the Scriptures will do unless the opposition is thoroughly and completely rejected using the same words issued by MacArthur. Again, don't mistake that for postulating possible negative outcomes. My family and others who I love have experienced the devestation. Similarly, any insinuation that my personal experiences have simply provided me with an "axe to grind" shows that you haven't heard what I'm saying - read the fourth paragraph again.

In any case, those are officially my last words about the issue, and perhaps my last words on Soylent Green. As I contemplate shutting her down, I'm thankful for the insightful remarks, patient reproof and thought-provoking comments offered over the last 8 months.

I SHOULD ALSO CLARIFY THAT THESE SENTIMENTS, AS ALL OF THOSE FOUND ON THIS BLOG, ARE MY OWN, AND NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF THE ELDERS OF MY CHURCH.

Some More Reflections on TMS and Emergent . . .

• Given the response to my comments in a previous post about the TMS faculty series on Emergent, I thought I'd post a few links to throw attention elsewhere and distract from my daring helicopter escape:

• Andy Snider's getting the emergent church hysteria out of his system here and here. Andy's a good guy. Check it out.

• There have been a few posts on The Boar's Head Tavern, including this and this. The iMonk himself bestows some kindly sympathy upon the Raja.

• Tall Skinny Kiwi puts the Master's Seminary in the same sentence as Yale Divinity School.

• Though I've never met him, there's something I really like about Scott Zeller in the various posts I've read. Check out his thoughts here.

• Apparently these lectures have already made their way to Germany (!) where Danny Gandy has posted his brief appraisal (translation courtesy of Babelfish).

Stop the Presses!

It's come to my attention that some people (not within my church) have contacted friends of mine in pastoral minsitry with fears about my orthodoxy because of my occasional criticisms of Phil Johnson and John MacArthur. Some of these fears are related to what is seen as me "promoting the New Perspective", which has been given a blanket billing of heresy by some concerned individuals. Beyond the fact that our church has been ravaged by such controversy in the very recent past, and the fact that we have made our position on the New Perspective clear, I'd like to point out a few things to keep in mind when reading this blog:

• I love Phil and John: Though I have in the past criticized both Phil Johnson and John MacArthur for their reactions to various trends in evangelical churches/scholarship, I have always pointed out that I respect them and agree with them on most issues. 9 out of 10 times it's the manner in which they criticize and the way their criticisms are sometimes used to smash other truly born again believers that fuels my critique of them, not the substance of their doctrinal conclusions. I have benefitted from the ministry of Grace Community Church in a hundred ways and recognize the positive impact of these guys.
  
• I am theologically conservative and orthodox: What I will never do on Soylent Green is call into question the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God, the Trinitarian nature of God, the secure, electing love of God, the Chalcedonian nature of Christ, the literal death and resurrection of Christ for the penal substitutionary atonement and forgiveness of our sins, the necessity of faith and repentance plus nothing to appropriate this forgiveness and justification, the imputation of Christ's divine status of righteousness to believers by virtue of union with Him, the sealing and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit at the moment of regeneration and the bodily return of Jesus in His coming kingdom. However this blog IS NOT an attempt to explain these settled doctrinal positions. It is instead intended to promote discussion, reflection, debate and refinement (not redefinition) of my thinking on other theoretical issues and implications. Because it is a scratch pad for my thoughts, it isn't a reflection of my core doctrinal convictions anymore than thoughts about whether heaven will include pets or not.
  
• I am approachable: If you have problems with what I post, POST THEM IN THE COMMENTS or EMAIL ME DIRECTLY. The point of this blog is for my edification and yours, and if there are Biblical, logical or pastoral reasons for disagreement I want to be confronted with them so that I can change and grow. That's the point. If you have a question about how I define words like justification or imputation, or if you're wondering if I believe in salvation by works ASK ME! And if my answers don't satisfy you, post your concerns and tell me why not! Don't try to use this site to silently build a case for my heterodoxy. It doesn't reflect concern for me and it doesn't display integrity as a brother/sister in Christ.
  
• I love debate: It's been stated above, but in case anyone missed it: don't confuse discussion with my position. I'm trying to be thought provoking. I'm trying to sort out the issues, not claim that I have them all sorted out or reporting what I have sorted out. I'm often trying to play the devil's advocate in order to elicit Biblical reflection. Moreover I have several friends involved in Biblical studies and a devestatingly handsome twin I like to toss around theological issues with, and this is my primary means of doing that.
  
• I have no liberal loyalties: Much of this blog is simply reflection on books I've read. I don't endorse the views of all the authors I read, and I actively try to find the best in them, so if you don't hear me blowing them out of the water or focusing on their errors, that's intentional. I will occasionaly be critical, but for the most part my focus is on what I can learn to help me understand God's Word. So, if I'm not blasting someone who you think deserves to be blasted or if I'm blasting someone you think doesn't deserve to be blasted, don't take that as me "defining my allegiances". I'm not. If you think I am, you'll be annoyed more often than not. My allegiance is to God, the elders of my church, the people to whom I minister and to all those who have been born again. My conscience is held captive to the Word of God, but I recognize that I still have so much to learn about it!

Maybe there's more to say, but I can't think of anything else right now. If you have concerns, take this opportunity to let me know or post a comment! I don't bite, and when I do, I apologize! For the most part those who have posted here recognize all of the above, and I offer my sincere thanks for the wonderful interaction I enjoy here. The idea of starting a blog was primarily as a ministry to me, in order to find a space to dialogue and mix it up over theoretical and methodological issues that don't find a lot of relevancy in the Sunday School class. The last thing I'd want to do is mislead or confuse a brother as to the essentials of the Christian faith!

If you'd like to read the few posts where I actually mentioned N.T. Wright you can read them here and here. The posts which more off-handedly mention him are here, here, here and here. You can judge whether you thought me to be saying something inappropriate or not.

In any case, for all those reading this post with lingering suspicion, I humbly suggest you read a previous post about what I call "doctrinal politics" in the spirit of brotherly kindness with which it was intended.

Objectivity and Interpretation pt. 3

Although I considered writing a separate article for each of the four points listed below, I think it may be in the best interest of time (mine, anyway!) to simply list them in summary form in a single post. It should be obvious by now that my own answers to the questions posed in my first post are "no", "no", "no" and "no". Exegetes do not operate with methodological objectivity, nor should they. Furthermore neither the apostles nor early church fathers paid much attention to the kind of procedures and criteria foisted upon seminary students in their quest for an unbiased reading of Scripture. What may not be clear, though, is how I might answer the last question - that is, are there interpretive options that repudiate the false ideal of Enlightenment objectivity and at the same time avoid relativistic nihilism? I believe that there are. Below are listed four resources that Christians should draw upon in developing a hermeneutical bridge from the text to the reader. But before I list them, there are some general comments I think germane to the topic of theological methodology and the interpretation of Scripture.

Firstly, while the postmodern critical theories of Derrida, Rorty, and Fish may be helpful in their chastisement of an overstated modernism as "too big for its breeches", I think they are ultimately bankrupt in providing sensible alternatives for what counts as textual meaning, literary knowledge and the ethical treatment of texts. While I understand that misconceptions and caricature abound in portraying the true import of these theories (particularly that of Derrida), it seems to me that the fundamental failure to see texts as truly communicative in some meaningful way hamstrings the entire discussion.

Related to this is a second observation about method, and that is the issue of intuition. Doubtless, our perceptions of the world are often misguided and sometimes even downright mistaken - but any theory which utterly disregards our pre-critical impressions, especially of those features of the world with which we interact so often (like speech, writing and reading) is, in my view, a failure. Theory is an attempt to elucidate existing objects and practices, and one criteria of a theory's success should be the degree to which it explains phenomena adduced by pre-critical intuition. Please don't mistake this comment as an appeal to common sense - Aristotle spoke of how appearances prove to be much more complex and counter-intuitive upon investigation, and I agree with him - but these complexities have explanatory power only to the degree to which they elucidate our initial impressions. The more radical doubt a theory casts on our intuitions the more explanation and evidence we ought to demand from it - and it's here that I find the arguments of many poststructural strategies sorely lacking. In all of the claims to the author's death I haven't seen why I should believe this is so; I've yet to see an intelligible reconstruction of the crime scene much less the presentation of the body. But I'm not nearly as well-read as I ought to be on the subject - maybe some commenters can help.

Finally, I must say that the above observation has given me a gross distaste for the global claims made by literary critics about not only the nature of texts, reading and interpretation but with the nature of knowledge, ethics and (of course) God. Here, in my judgment, is where postmodern literary critics need some chastisment with no less fervor than they dish out to the modernist tradition of Western philosophy. The uneasy sense with which they never seem to "show me the money" (as mentioned above) grows into disgust when at the same time the claims made about metaphysics and epistemology are so sweeping and self-assured. I can't help but see them as "too big for their breeches". Even with my paltry knowledge of subjects philosophical (I have an undergraduate degree in history alongside my divinity degree), I can see that parallel observations about the limits and nature of language have grown alongside literary criticism in the analytic tradition. What's more, the subject of epistemology seem to have grown past many postmodern objections without the absurdly grandiose pronouncements, and with (instead) tightly reasoned attempts to answer objections, inconsistencies and explanatory failure. Postmodernism, not least postmodern literary theories, seems strangely immune to criticism by those who tout them. Does that make you suspicious? It should. With that said, here are some ways forward (note that the pictures are resource links):

1) Reformed epistemology: Knowing how to interpret a text depends upon how and how much you think a person can know. Reformed epistemology has, in my mind, has given the strongest account for what knowledge is and how it works without succumbing to the criticisms of postmodernist anxiety. The moderate correspondence theory of William P. Alston and the moderate foundationalism of Alvin Plantinga not only resonate philosophically, but theologically in that they promote a "faith seeking understanding" (i.e. a dependence upon Christian starting points). They are fundamentally presuppositional, eliminating the notion of "neutral common ground", which takes into account the most basic postmodern sensibility (there's a topic for discussion!). They imply the notion of covenant loyalty as a necessary part of what it means "to know", and know truly. Applied to Scripture this means that we should come to the text Christianly, without the apologetic pressure to prove our readings to be "objectively verifiable" to those who don't display a commitment to the Christian worldview. This requires seeing the text as not only the work of human hands, but as divine discourse (a phrase used by another Reformed philosopher, Nicholas Wolterstorff). The divine intention is made most clear when we see texts in their canonical setting, and divine discourse can only take place when the reader has personal knowledge of the Author.

2) Speech-act theory: While someone might want to debate the success of Vanhoozer's attempt to ground speech-act theory in theological conviction (cg. Is There a Meaning in This Text?) it seems to me that a theory of interpretation must take into account the author as a communicative agent, the text as an account of something the author did, and the distinction between the act of the author and the effects of the text. Seeing language primarily in terms of semiotics, encoded thoughts in need of contexts for decoding, is a classically Cartesian mistake upon which deconstruction depends. Moreover, the notion of a text without authorial intent is nonsense. There, I said it. The difference between noise and speech, tittles and texts, chaos and communication, is intention. Seeing texts as purposeful human actions (just as other human actions, like driving, sneezing and sex) requires the concept of intention. Speech-act theory seems to hold these things together well without reducing intention to some kind of psychologized Schleiermacherian "stepping inside the author's skin". Intention isn't about the mental state of the author, but what the author does in tending to his words with linguistic conventions appropriate to the speech-act.

3) Apostolic interpretation: The apostles (and the church fathers, for that matter) went further than a simple descriptive use of Scripture in its original context. They used it ironically, antithetically, and a number of other creative ways in order to show how God's actions in the present were an outgrowth of something He had done in the past. In his book Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, Richard Hays shows how Paul's use of the Old Testament was not only more sophisticated than proof-texting, but more careful as well. This involved something more than attending to the historical grammatical context but something less than arbitrary appropriation according to words or phrases which might help his argument. He instead proposes that the quotations display an intertextual melding which brings together the circumstances of his letters with the context of the quote to create new meaning. The constraints he mentions to this use of Scripture (namely 1. God's faithfulness to his promises, 2. the testimony of Jesus' death and resurrection - i.e. the Gospel - and 3. the goal of cruciform church) together with his seven guidelines listed for hearing "echoes" provide an understanding not only of how Paul used the Old Testament, but how Christians might (and in fact do) read Scripture today. Without regurgitating his argument here, I would point out that Paul's practice of reading Scripture not only emphasizes a sensitivity to the historical situation in which they were written, but with one eye to contemporary events in the church "upon whom the ends of the ages has come". This collapses the "what it meant" and "what it means" into a single category, much like Paul himself seems to do in his use of OT texts.

4) Critical realism: I'm not sure what it means to speak of "critical realism" as a full-blown epistemology, but the general attitude is one I think is key not only to doing history (as Wright deftly displays in The New Testament and the People of God) but to the interpretation of Scripture. This involves, firstly, a stance toward the text which sees it as adequately (though not exhaustively) knowable, though in a mediated sense. It also sees the role of explanatory power as an important criteria for faithfulness to the text; in other words, instead of exalting the detailed analysis of exegesis as the most important feature of interpretation it seeks to take into account the larger "narrative world", itself shaped by texts, within which the authors lived, moved and had their being (as do we!). Laying these larger paradigms over the Biblical text to see similarities and differences should be an interpretive priority of equal value as exegesis in getting at the author's intended meaning. More than that, though, critical realism is a disposition which sees that however obscured our vision may be, or however provisional our readings may be, adequate understanding is not only possible, but plausible.

Obviously more could be said. I would have liked to said more about Jewish exegesis in comparison (and contrast) with Paul's use of Scripture with an eye to the issue of "objectivity", but having mentioned these four suggestions, I'll just be content to move on!

The Master's Seminary Takes On Emergent

A couple of their newest faculty lectures dealing with the Emerging Church are available on the The Master's Seminary website (click the picture above). John MacArthur introduces the topic in relationship to Biblical authority while Dr. Larry Pettegrew addresses the philosophical "paradigm" of the emerging church. Soon to follow are messages by Trevor Craigen on emergent views on man, sin and salvation, Dick Mayhue on emergent ecclesiology and Rick Holland on emergent worship and preaching. Check it out and please post your comments!

Objectivity and Interpretation pt. 2

If objectivity in interpretation is the attempt to examine the text of Scripture with methodological neutrality, namely the effective suspension of emotions, judgments, desires, past experiences and theological convictions, it should be plainly obvious that objectivity is a hopeless chimera. It should also be plainly obvious that it is in fact an undesirable goal. The Scriptures emphatically repudiate the detached observer in affairs divine; in fact, it seems to suggest that such detachment is a result of the kind of proud self-reliance which singularly prevents a person from coming to know the subject of divine revelation. More on that later.

But for now, notice the fundamental presumption upon which the concept of objective interpretation rests, namely that there is a canon of interpretive rules to which we apply to the text in order for it to yield the interpretive goods. A friend of mine recently characterized the proper method for interpretation this way: 1) identify the literary genre, 2) identify the pericope, 3) isolate lexical and syntactical hinges, synthesize and principlize, 4) establish biblical-theological implications, 5) develop pluriform homiletical application (read both the excellent post and the comments in the above link!). But where do these rules come from? Is it common sense to "identify the pericope" or "isolate lexical and syntactical hinges"? How do we know that the intent of the human author should serve as the desiderata of legitimate interpretation? Beyond these problems, how can it be that our earliest Christian heritage reflected in patristic interpretation fundamentally violates and subverts these notions in a hundred ways? More on that later.

But back to this problem of interpretive desiderata. On what basis can a person defend "objective" methods such as the ones above as truly "biblical" norms for understanding Scripture? Without some authoritative source it remains unclear how the application of such principles can ever be truly "objective", especially if it is always up to the interpreter's personal judgment to determine in what manner (and according to what priority) these principles are applied. Ultimately, the inability of rooting a scientific method of interpretation within the Bible itself proves to be the Achilles heel of an objectivist, exclusively author-oriented interpretation. Moreover, neither the apostles nor contemporary Jewish interpreters seemed to be aware that they were saddled with this kind of interpretive responsibility.

More on that later.

But this is not to forsake Scripture as an authoritative divine word in favor of relativistic nihilism (by which queer interpretation is on the same playing field as traditional sermonizing). It is, instead, a recognition that the Bible is in fact not just like any other book. The interpretation of it requires a distinctively theological hermeneutics which understands the Scriptures as more than an artifact to be studied under purportedly objective scientific criteria. The Scriptures should not be understood to contain a communicative act of God which must be dug up, analyzed and decoded, but rather as the very communicative act of God itself. As such the only appropriate hermeneutical method will be shaped by Christian conviction and the dictates of Christian virtue modeled within the historic community of the Christian faith. It will also be a dialogical hermeneutic, in which the reader's context plays some important role in understanding the message, as true communication can't be achieved by an interpretive strategy that only goes one way. Gadamer was right to say that situatedness should not be seen as a handicap to be surmounted in interpretation, but instead a vehicle for understanding. Revelation is apprehended (and transformation is experienced) not by way of some quasi-Gnostic transportation from the self into the heavens, but by the wrestling which takes place in the fusion of the reader's personhood with the "other" of the text. Obliteration of the self in order to understand divine truths is an old heresy which now masquerades as interpretive integrity under the auspices of Enlightenment values.

Far from being an "anything goes" type of reading, it commends that an interpreter continue to do business with the text in order to shape, refine and challenge his understanding of it. Far from making truth inaccessible or glutting the theological task with uncertainty it recognizes that truth comes in covenantal contact with God through the way Scripture acts upon its hearers. The Scriptures facilitate this relationship by the power of the Spirit, not simply by propositions to be believed (though this is one important communicative act of God), but by promises to be trusted, commands to be followed and narratives to be entered into. In all of these ways the text must be seen as more than just a recipe for theological description, but as speech acts which remain relevant not because of some concocted scheme for "application", but through the abiding illocutionary power they contain as performative utterances. Kevin J. Vanhoozer speaks of the illocution of Scripture taking place at the level of sentence, text and canon such that the authorial intention transcends the human author even as human authors mediate the divine discourse. Thus:

To limit oneself to recovering only the human authorial intentions is to fall short of theological interpretation. And to impose one's own intentions or the intentions of one's community is to fail to guard oneself from potential idols (K. Vanhoozer).

Objectivity and Interpretation

John Walton, professor of OT at Wheaton College, reflects the conservative evangelical consensus about objectivity in Biblical interpretation when he says, "Objectivity is the goal of hermeneutics so that the text of Scripture may speak for itself." For purposes of definition, objectivity can be seen as the brute qualities of a thing which exists independently from any conscious awareness of it. In the fact that objectivity speaks of reality as independent from our perceptions of it, an objective description seeks to state the case "as it is" regardless of anyone's perceptions. Subjectivity, then, is defined as the relative perceptions of a thing viewed through some contingent conscious state.

Before the Enlightenment, philosophers were relatively optimistic about the ability to perceive objects as they really are. Grappling with the essences of things was no easy task, to be sure, and reasoning the "whatness" of objects was a defining characteristic of classical philosophy - but for the most part our ability to rightly perceive the phenomena of objects in the world was taken for granted. During the Enlightenment, the primacy of metaphysics gave way to the primacy of epistemology, where the act of perceiving itself became an object of scrutiny. Immanuel Kant famously criticized the idea of empirical observation as providing the guiding principles of rationality suggesting instead that the categories which exist inside the mind predetermine our observations of objects in the world. From this standpoint the object doesn't simply impress itself on the mind, the mind actively discerns the object through its own (mostly reliable) categories. If that's true, as the Enlightenment project has assumed, it makes the ideal knowledge one in which nothing comes between the vision of a knower and the thing known. This is true even of Kant, since he believed that though the world in itself (outside of perception) could not be known, our minds are still hooked up to the world in a way that speaks truly about objects. Mark Bowald says:

"Objectivity" came to connote the character of the epistemological stance a person assumes while struggling to seek out knowledge of things in their epistemological opacity. That stance is viewed as being, ideally, unaffected by prior beliefs or judgments - in some sense 'neutral' or apart from any particular 'perspective'.

This observation is crucial to the definition of objectivity. It speaks, first and foremost, of a person's impartial disposition toward objects . Moreover this is said to be a necessary disposition in order to arrive at truth. Put another way, true knowledge necessarily involves eliminating (or mitigating) one's own subjective states, such as emotions, judgments, desires, past experiences, etc., from consideration, since all of these things cloud the vision of the knower. If one is to be objective, he or she must yield to the brute facts which present themselves through impartial observation. Once supporting evidence can be marshaled to bolster a claim, it can be called "objective knowledge".

When it comes to reading the Bible it can be argued that Biblical scholarship has carried on according to this definition as well. Exegetes are those who come to the text suspending subjective factors as much as possible, and neutrally allowing the text to guide them wherever it may as it yields to the scientific tools of the exegete, namely grammar, archeology, history, etc. The data mined from their research is then handed off to Biblical theologians who assemble their objective observations into coherent building blocks which can add to the systematic theologian's overarching picture of what the Bible teaches. The inappropriateness felt by any reversal of this process testifies to the struggle for knowledge as a value-free enterprise. Any exegesis which emerges from theology is subjective, and thus illegitimate. Theology which arises from exegesis remains the only gold standard for what can count as true knowledge of the Bible.

Subsequent posts will evaluate that picture, but first I wanted to throw it out there for your reflection and modification. A few interesting questions to ask might be:

"Does it really work this way?" Do exegetes operate with neutrality and suspended judgment?

"Should it work this way?" Is impartiality a Biblical virtue in interpretation? Are there moral implications of objectivity?

"Did the apostles interpret Scripture this way?" Was their use of Scripture just an arbitrary product of ecstatic revelation which ran counter to how God wants Christians to read Scripture today?

"Are these our only options?" Does one have to approach the text "objectively" or be doomed to approach it "subjectively", or is there another way of looking at literary knowledge?

Intermission

I've had a billion ideas for posts in the last several days (one of which will be a series of posts on the nature of "objectivity" in interpretation), but in light of the recent sale of our home and the hectic nature of moving, I can only offer the picture below as a record of my recievcing the aforementioned ideas:

Phil-Uh-Oh

Greek students will be familiar with the above title as a form of the word "love". Okay, that's actually "phileo" (pronounced "phil-eh-oh") - but in any case, the word refers to friendship and it's in that light I'd like to explain the deletion of my previous post entitled "Can't We Get Along Damn it?!" In this obviously peaceful excursion I tried to demonstrate what I felt to be shortcomings in the PyroManiac's various theological scuffles, particularly with the emergent Church and the New Perspective. In it I intimated that Phil's frustration with continuationists in the cessationist debate is the very same frustration felt by his opponents in these other positions, and (more importantly), that the admonitions he gave to continuationists might help to improve the debate in these areas as well. Aren't I clever?

Not everyone thought so. Probably the least clever thing about my post, though, was the public way in which I drew attention to Phil's shortcomings, which (especially after seeing his response) I now realize was somewhat un-classy and even less helpful for him than I feared it may be. In any case a retraction is certainly in order. It was severely rash to post something like that just because irony can be so fun. If, in this post, Phil is now enjoying some irony of his own, he can thank me later. I have been unkind more than once in his "comments" section in the past, and doubtless this wasn't the best way to renew my complaints. Seeing how it's proven so difficult for me to point out the problems with the PyroManiac's approach without offending:

Forgive me, Phil.

But take a lesson from me and don't get too greedy in enjoying the irony. Just to be clear, I don't think the irony is the way I "mischaracterized" your handling of issues like the New Perspective and Emergent - it's in the fact that I was so unkind as to point it out in such a public, unconstructive way.

Framing the Emergent Church

I just came across this book review of Generous Orthodoxy from John Frame. It seems to be a critical (though even-handed) jot about McLaren's ecclesial vision. It's encouraging to read a critical review once and awhile without having to dab the subject's spattered blood from one's face, which makes this one worth the read.

Frame has been the author of several interesting essays lately, including his analysis of the fighting instinct inherited from Machen, an appropriately unsentimental article on hurting people's feelings, and a stark recognition of the lack of minority appeal in Reformed Churches.

Go, Johnny go!

Ugh . . .

After typing all day long I finally finished tagging all of the MP3s of last year's Evangelical Theological Society Conference lectures. I wasn't interested in about 93 percent of what I was laboriously cataloging, which made the whole process all the more enjoyable. Beyond that, the one panel I was looking forward to listening to again was "joined in progress", which means that someone forgot to turn the microphone on until AFTER the more insightful comments were made (namely Jim Beilby's response to Merold Westphal about theology and the postmodern turn). Still, James D.G. Dunn's session with Scot McKnight, Don Hagner and Craig Evans seems to have been recorded flawlessly, as did some of the sessions by fellow bloggers Michael Bird, Alan Bandy, and Bryan Lee. My iPod is now a whole lot smarter than I am (not that it wasn't before all I had on it was Tom Petty and The White Stripes). Together with my other lectures, I now have about 547 hours of shower-time bliss.

Get Real . . .

One of the many longstanding debates in the world of philosophy is over the nature of existence (metaphysics) - do things exist in total independence from our senses, or can they be said to exist only in light of our perceptions of them? This philosophical scuffle can be called "the realism/antirealism" debate, and (as you might expect) it's got tremendous import for doing theology.

This has been noted most recently in light of the postconservative/emerging/purple theology move being made by several evangelical theologians in which some notions of anti-realism have influenced their understanding of the theological task. In particular, the idea that our language refers to the world the way it actually is has been challenged on a number of different levels. The world, instead, can only be viewed from various perspectives within their theory-laden observations. These observations can genuinely say something about the world, but there is no genuinely objective "way it is". An example I recently heard about this idea was as follows: suppose I have a number of items on a table, and I ask you to tell me how many items exist on the table. The number you give will depend upon things like the way you group the items (you may choose to view the cell phone and the detachable clip as one item; you may choose to count a muffin and it's wrapper as two items) and what you choose to count as an item (you probably wouldn't count individual crumbs as an item; you'd likely not count each molecule as a seperate item). In this case there is no "the way it is", as multiple answers will be correct from different perspectives. Merold Westphal and John Franke are two examples of contemporary evangelical theologians who have adopted some version of anti-realism.

Obviously most traditional theology assumes so measure of realism. Most contemporary evangelicals who have responded to the anti-realist tendencies of postmodern theology might consider themelves noetically specific anti-realists - that is, they deny that the minds of anti-realists exist. What are your thoughts about the validity or significance of realism/anti-realism in doing theology? How would this affect what theologians could call "true" or "false"? Is it possible for an anti-realist to preach an authoritative Gospel, or does this view constitute heresy?