If each note of music were to say:
one note does not make a symphony,
there would be no symphony.
If each word were to say: one word does not make a book,
there would be no book.
If each brick were to say: one brick does not make a wall,
there would be no house.
If each drop of water were to say: one drop does not make an ocean,
there would be no ocean.
If each seed were to say: one grain does not make a field of corn,
there would be no harvest.
If each one of us were to say: one act of love cannot save mankind,
there would never be justice and peace on earth.
The symphony needs each note.
The book needs each word.
The house needs each brick.
The ocean needs each drop of water.
The harvest needs each grain of wheat.
The whole of humanity needs you
as and where you are.
You are unique.
No one can take your place.
There is one thing people fail to understand who speak disparagingly of “good works” in favor of “faith alone”: any deed done in love cannot, by definition, be done for the purpose of earning God’s favor. If one acts in love, there is no thought of merit.
Now I know that many in the “faith alone” crowd will counter by speaking of the deceptive depravity of human beings. Our motives are always mixed, whether we realize it or not. By nature we are sinful, and all our works are tainted by sin. God knows our hearts; we don’t. Even our most righteous deeds appear as filthy rags to him. Yada yada yada. I’ve made all those arguments and a million more.
I have come to the opinion that God doesn’t parse things out like that. I don’t think God demands an utterly sterile inner environment from us before we can do genuinely good acts that bring healing to others. If we love our neighbor and act for his benefit out of that love, I believe God counts that (not that he’s keeping score either). Just love and act! for heaven’s sake.
On the other hand, yes, I’m absolutely sure I can never fully understand my own heart and motives. But I know that scripture tells me “faith working through love” is God’s design for those who follow Jesus (Galatians 5:6). And it is this which is directly contrasted with the kinds of “works” Paul wrote so vehemently against — works which represented Jewish boundary markers defining who was in and who was out of the covenant people (in this case, circumcision). Faith working through love has nothing to do with “works” of merit designed to earn God’s favor.
Paul writes elsewhere that this kind of love is the goal of Christian instruction (1Timothy 1:5).
Florence Allshorn was an Anglican missionary to Uganda in the 1920s. She faced so many challenges in her work that on one occasion she wrote, “I need God so much here. Everything is so difficult.” But there was one challenge above all, as her biographer writes:
Far the most acute struggle for Florence, however, was in the sphere of relations with her fellow-missionaries. She had written before leaving Sheffield that love was something so big that she had never touched it. By far the most important event in her four years in Uganda was that she was brought face to face with the meaning of love.
Allshorn was the eighth young missionary who had been sent to the station where she served, and none of those before her had lasted more than two years. A strained relationship with another missionary was leading Florence to the same point. One day an old African matron came to her while the young girl was crying in near despair on the veranda. The woman lamented that she had watched missionaries come and go for fifteen years, but none of them had made a difference. Allshorn reports that this brought her to attention with a bang. The old woman had set up a mirror, and immediately Florence saw where the real problem lay.
I was the problem for myself. I knew enough of Jesus Christ to know that the enemy was the one to be loved before you could call yourself a follower of Jesus Christ, and I prayed, in great ignorance as to what it was, that this same love might be in me, and I prayed as I have never prayed in my life for that one thing.
…I suddenly realized that it didn’t matter two hoots what happened to me; the only thing that mattered was what happened to God and the other person. From that moment everything changed. I stopped bothering about myself. And though it often wasn’t easy, we came to fashion a good working sort of friendship. We both enjoyed books and could share many together. Gradually the whole atmosphere of the place altered. The children felt it and began to share in it, and to do little brave unselfish things that they had never done before.
Did you notice these profound words? — “I knew enough of Jesus Christ to know that the enemy was the one to be loved before you could call yourself a follower of Jesus Christ.” This woman of profound faith knew — from Jesus — that “faith” is rooted in orthopraxy — faith working through love.
It’s time to depart from the company of the theological analyzers and get on with the business of practicing love. What power there might be in a few “little brave unselfish things.”
“Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth” (1John 3:18).
This bit of divine response is found near the end of a poem by Fr. Quoist that speaks of how easy it would be to simply give up on being part of God’s mission.
However, God loves us too much to let us do that. Please realize this: participating in the work of the Kingdom is not simply a matter of God needing us and therefore refusing to let us step aside; it is for our own formation that we work in partnership with him.
When Jesus called Simon and Andrew, he said, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men” (Mark 1:16, NASB).
The call was to act.
The promise was that they would become something they were not before.
The outcome would be that, through them, other human beings would likewise come and follow Jesus.
He did not bid them follow merely to train them for doing a task (“fishers of men”). He bid them follow so that they might become new (“I will make you become”).
Acting leads to becoming which leads to influencing.
He did not call the disciples to come into a classroom.
He did not give them a book to read.
He did not hand out a course syllabus.
He did not lay out for them a course or program of study.
They were not required to memorize a catechism.
There were no papers to write, projects to complete, tests to take.
One word of instruction was spoken: Follow me.
St. Francis’s first companion was Bernard of Assisi. When he sought Francis’s advice about what to do to become a disciple, Francis quoted three simple instructions Jesus gave in the Gospels: “If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and come, follow me;” “Take nothing with you for your journey: neither staff, nor scrip, nor bread, nor money;” and, “If any one will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”
Then St Francis said to Bernard: “This is the advice that the Lord has given us; go and do as thou hast heard; and blessed be the Lord Jesus Christ who has pointed out to thee the way of his angelic life.”
Francis did not set before Bernard a statement of doctrine or belief to which he should assent, but said, in essence, “Follow Jesus.” Go and do as thou hast heard.
How different so many of us are in the contemporary church, as described by Dallas Willard: “We intend what is right, but we avoid the life that would make it reality.”
Many of us avoid this way, or we want to quit along the way because we’re afraid; we know it involves suffering and laying down our lives for the benefit of others. But “doing what we have heard” is and remains essential for our becoming.Richard Rohr writes some wise words about this:
I believe that, in the end, there are really only two “cauldrons of transformation”: great love and great suffering. And they are indeed cauldrons, big stew pots of warming, boiling, mixing, and flavoring! Our lives of contemplation are a gradual, chosen, and eventual free fall into both of these cauldrons. There is no softer or more honest way to say it. Love and suffering are indeed the ordinary paths of transformation, and contemplative prayer is the best way to sustain the fruits of great love and great suffering over the long haul and into deep time. Otherwise you invariably narrow down again into business as usual.
Either business as usual, or we submit our resignation. If we ever get started on the path at all, that is.
Scenes from the Life of St. Francis – Montefalco, Gozzoli
The most arresting phrase in this quote by Fr. Michel Quoist is: “You play the saint….”
When you receive a gift from a friend, you usually open the package immediately, admire your gift, indicate your approval and thank the giver. Your heavenly Father has given you many different gifts, but all too often you do not even dare to look at them and enjoy them. You play the saint and you don’t even take the trouble to be polite to the Giver. The gifts of your heavenly Father aren’t solely for your own personal use. They were given to you for others and for him as well. If you have received more, more will be expected of you. If you have anything to fear, it’s not the acknowledgement of your gifts, but your failure to use them.
Yes, how many times and in how many ways do we “play the saint” before God and others!
We tend to think we do this, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, by practicing our acts of righteousness before others. Spiritual showing off. Talking all the time about how God spoke to me in my devotions or how I helped someone in need or give my time so freely to serve in my church. Or at least looking busy “serving the Lord.”
Not as often do we think about “playing the saint” by refusing to acknowledge and use the gifts God has given us.
Last week, Richard Rohr sent out several meditations on the subject of “orthopraxy” — the right practice of our faith. This term is usually used to distinguish it from “orthodoxy” — right belief. It is not that right belief is unimportant, but it is often separated from right practice in unhealthy ways. In addition, the relationship between the two is not always understood. Rohr puts it this way: “We don’t think ourselves into a new way of living; we live ourselves into a new way of thinking.”
There is much to be said for this. Jesus followed rabbinic practice with his disciples: he apprenticed them. Hearing and learning went hand in hand with doing. Indeed, doing often preceded the conversations that led to deeper understanding (or further bewilderment!). This was no school for theoretical studies; the disciples learned by doing and in the context of doing. Always. Jesus didn’t seem to care a whole lot about imparting a detailed statement of doctrines or a “philosophy” about life.
Rohr’s model, apart from Jesus, is the founder of his order, St. Francis. Francis told the first friars, “You only know as much as you do.” He took his faith and his followers on the road. Some have called this “performative spirituality,” which I think is a good designation, as long as we understand clearly: there is no other kind.
The great spokesperson for this apprenticeship, performative perspective in our day was the late Dallas Willard, whose central claim was: “We can become like Christ by doing one thing — by following him in the overall style of life he chose for himself.”
In his masterpiece, The Spirit of the Disciplines, Willard identified the reason so many of us fail to take this path: “I believe our present difficulty is one of misunderstanding how our experiences and actions enable us to receive the grace of God.”
Now, to one who was schooled in what I now consider a post-Reformation perversion of teaching about faith and works, that sounds dangerous. But as I reflect on the many, many (futile) debates I’ve had about faith vs. good works over the years, I’ve come to see that I was playing the good little “saint” while missing the point badly. God had handed me wonderful gifts waiting to be unwrapped and used to bless the world, and all I could do was come up with theological excuses as to why I shouldn’t.
As Michael Quoist said, that’s downright impolite.
The evangelical notion of Christians thinking “worldview-ishly” goes back, in my experience, to the first edition of James Sire’s book The Universe Next Door. I have read the book in all four editions, have used it with students and frequently recommended it to others. I continue to find the book, when understood rightly, useful.
The notion of “worldview” has, however, taken on a life far beyond Sire’s idea of a basic set of questions that represent a diagnostic and descriptive way of summarizing presuppositions and beliefs. In books such as Nancy Pearcey’s Total Truth, “worldview” has come to be a major movement of evangelicals describing the total Christian faith as it is expressed in a comprehensive approach to all of life. According to Pearcey, the Christian worldview, for instance, has a distinctive approach to science, math or economics. Understanding and advocating this “total truth” approach to the diversity of life is a primary concern of many serious Christians who desire that Christ be Lord of everything in their lives.
Today, the term “worldview” is frequently synonymous with Christianity itself. It is not at all unusual to hear Christians say, “My Christian worldview teaches me that abortion is wrong,” or “The Christian worldview advocates limited government.”
My contention is that the term “worldview,” while useful as a summary of major components of the faith, is a poor and deeply flawed term for the sum total of the faith.
My first and primary concern is that “worldview” thinking may obscure the fact that God has inspired a book in the form of a narrative. The Bible is a story, and it is in Biblical narratives that much of the Bible’s message is conveyed. While these narratives are the subject of didactic passages — such as Genesis 1-3 interpreted in Romans 1 — the narratives cannot be reduced to an “inspired worldview.”
I am further concerned that worldview thinking may see the Bible as a collection of topical texts, and the literary genres of the Bible may become an unwelcome obstacle to boiling down scripture to “worldview” statements.
I am also concerned that the tendency in evangelicalism is to move far beyond Sire’s approach to a much more detailed assumption that there is a Biblical worldview answer to every question. This seems to be particularly true with the rise of the “Culture Warrior” Christian who wants verses to support his/her conservative political agenda. Does the Christian worldview have an answer to tax policy? To the future of Taiwan? To the minimum wage? It appears that many Christians think so.
I believe that the Christian “worldview” is best expressed as a kind of “F.A.Q.” or list of frequently asked questions. In this regard, I think it is hard to surpass Sire’s very limited use of “worldview” thinking for apologetic, missional and evangelistic purposes. I use the idea of Sire’s eight questions as a “grid” for students to compare belief systems in shorthand. (Even with this, it is important to say that I doubt other belief systems would be in agreement with much of what is said about them in Christian worldview analysis.)
When “worldview advocacy” begins to assert that there are specific and clear verses in the Bible that tell us what to think, do, and vote on every topic, we are in danger of the Bible being turned into a kind of topical encyclopedia of subjects, with verses being removed from context and questions being inserted that Biblical writers never conceived of answering.
I do believe that if the Christian faith is approached correctly, we can “take steps back” from almost any subject to a place where the Bible does speak clearly on a larger subject. But this does not mean that the Bible will dictate a position on every smaller topic. So, for example, there are no Biblical passages on the minimum wage, but there are Biblical principles of loving neighbor, doing justice, fair compensation and recognizing the value of work.
For me, this means that Christians who are in agreement on broad Biblical categories — like justice, for example — may disagree on what is a just way to help New Orleans or solve a crisis in health care. I see the Biblical worldview as a shorthand version of systematic theology, stressing particular aspects of Christian belief that are clearly taught across the whole Biblical narrative. In that “house” of constructed theology taken out of the Biblical narrative, we have the freedom to make choices on issues according to reason, and are not compelled by the Bible to every position we might hold.
So while I agree that the term worldview is useful, I am concerned about the current “worldview” movement and I am not supportive of much of what I hear from those who frequently use the language of “worldview” to make it appear that the Bible is a far different book than it actually is. The idea that the Bible speaks with specificity on all topics of interest to the politically active, culture warrior Christian is farfetched. We have a story that tells us about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. From that story, we can make and draw conclusions, but if we begin justifying our support for positions by misusing the Bible, we do not represent the faith well.
Hello friends and welcome to the weekend. Ready to Ramble?
1958 Rambler Sedan
I’m feeling a bit British this week, so I thought we could try to start each entry with an understatement. Because, why not?
Academia is a strange place. Where else can you get people for fork over tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of taking classes like these (all from fall 2015 catalogs):
Tree Climbing — Cornell
Wasting Time on the Internet — Penn
How to Win a Beauty Pageant: Race, Gender, Culture, and U.S. National Identity — Oberlin
Stupidity — Occidental
Kanye West versus Everybody — Georgia State
On Being Bored — Brown
The American Vacation — Iowa
Nine months ago Buffalo, New York got a little snow. Seven feet of snow fell the days before Thanksgiving. Even in Buffalo, this much snow so early in the season set a record, and snowed many people in for a week. This month Buffalo area hospitals are setting records of another kind: for births.
Some company named Ashley Madison has been in the news lately. Gizmodo did a large expose of Ashley Madison, after spending many hours going through the data dump. Their conclusion: almost all the “women” listed in the site were fake accounts created by Ashley Madison employees, and the company deliberately sold fantasies to tens of millions of men, far less than one percent of whom actually met a woman through the site. Or, to put it another way, Ashley Madison was like a cheap karaoke bar where 50 drunk men compete for the attention of one woman [except it would actually be more like a 50,000 to 1 ratio].
And Ed Stetzer, a pastor and contributor at Christianity Today, makes a bold prediction about the Ashley Madison list: “Based on my conversations with leaders from several denominations in the U.S. and Canada, I estimate that at least 400 church leaders (pastors, elders, staff, deacons, etc.) will be resigning Sunday.” I hope he is wrong. I really, really hope he is wrong.
The Vatican has not always been a fan of Martin Luther. In his own time, Luther could remark, “If I fart in Wittenburg, they smell it in Rome.” Well, apparently 500 years makes the smell a little sweeter: this week he Vatican has given its backing to a central Rome square being named after Martin Luther.
Note from CM: We welcome our friend Daniel Grothe today. His delightful post is a refreshing reminder of God’s fatherly love for us. Daniel blogs at Edging into the Mysteries.
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Bedtime at our house is something.
Often the event that it most closely resembles is the moment a bunch of wild convicts attempt a jailbreak. Or, more innocently, it is probably not unlike a bunch of baby chicks trying to escape the walls of their little hot-lamp-heated enclosure, as if they’d know what to do with themselves if they got out. You get the point. Mayhem.
But as often as we can we try to redeem bedtime, as often as we can make it meaningful, we try to craft a moment that our children get caught up into.
Tonight was one of those moments.
I read a long portion of the Narnia series to Wilson, our 6-year-old boy. And I went for it—made-up-voices with wild inflection, a quickening pace before pulling way back into a painfully long, dramatic pause. Total silence.
There were a couple moments of uncontrollably gleeful yelling from him as I pulled taut the stunning string of fantasy that C.S. Lewis left for us. I could see it in his eyes. I had him. For 15 minutes he was utterly absorbed into a different world.
Then Lisa, my wife, and the one who keeps our family so beautifully in sync, took over with the boys while I went in the room next door to read to our 8-year-old daughter, Lillian. I read her the story of Elijah and his interaction with the widow of drought-stricken Zarephath in 1 Kings 17. I let her tease out how it might have felt to be that widow that day, and then she starting making the connections of other stories where God seemed to be asking so much of people just before sneaking up on them with goodness. I could feel it—this was shaping up to be the best bedtime routine we’ve had as a family in recent memory.
And then I heard it.
This is my daughter, whom I love; in her I am well pleased.
It was as if Jesus were cracking the surface of his baptismal waters all over again. The heavens might as well have opened as the Voice reverberated through my mind about this 8-year-old girl right in front of me. And so I said it over her:
This is my daughter, Lillian, whom I love; in you I am well pleased.
I told her this is what the Father proclaimed over Jesus, the Son, at his baptism and that He was saying it about her right now in this moment. And that He’s perpetually saying it about her, even when she doesn’t hear it or feel like it. I kept saying the phrase as I wove in other prayers about third grade beginning, and about her flourishing in her studies, and about nurturing great friendships, and about the joys of starting soccer practice. Then a goodnight kiss. She was at peace. She was ready for sleep.
Then I ran into Wilson’s room and lay down next to him. I started praying over him and pronouncing blessing and peace, and then I launched in.
This is my son, Wilson, whom I love; in you I am well pleased. You are a son of God, Wilson, and the Eternal Father is wildly interested in you. You are never out of his thoughts; you are never out of his sight; your existence is an existence defined by His sheer determination to love you, to keep you, to lead you, to hover over you with his delight.
I felt his tense little body slacken and settle into peace, and he grabbed my neck and whispered his love for me. It was the kind of moment I’ll always carry with me.
That’s how humans were made to go to bed.
Interestingly, our Jewish brothers and sisters conceive of a day much differently than a Westerner might. In Judaism, the day begins at sundown.
There was evening, and there was morning—the first day…
In this paradigm the day begins slowly because it is evening. Let’s eat a leisurely dinner. Let’s sit around and talk. Let’s go on a walk, and then after that maybe we’ll read a book. Evening. Now we are tired, so we should go to bed. It is evening, after all.
The Jews see themselves first as receiving beings; the doing comes last. All human work is responsive. God initiates. The very way “time” works for them is instructive—we start our day by receiving daily bread and the good gifts of friendship and intimacy. Then we go to sleep. The very last thing we do is work, which is, of course, our joyful and proper response to such a gracious God. And we’re ready for it because we’ve just woken up from resting in God’s love.
As I type this, it is 10:28 p.m., which means it is time to fall asleep. So many people will be tempted to see this as the end of their day, and they’ll struggle to rest because while they sleep the world may just race by them. They may wake up having lost ground, which is how the Fear taunts them.
But as you lie there in bed, the day is just beginning. “In the beginning God.” And while you fade into sleep, there is a world of blessing, the Father’s pronouncement of delight and acceptance and pleasure swirling about you. As the psalmist put it, “The LORD who watches over Israel will neither slumber, nor sleep.” So go to bed. God stands at the ready, he’s on the job so you don’t have to be. And take an extra 10 minutes to listen. The Father is there with you, praying over you.
You are my child, whom I love; in you I am well pleased.
Can you hear it? Will you stop long enough to receive it? Because it’s happening, it’s being pronounced, it’s poised to wash over you. If you’ll just let it.
First today, a word from one of our friends and sponsors, Alan Creech . . .
Greetings Internet Monk-ites!
It’s been a while since I’ve made an appearance in the actual blog copy of this estimable site. Many thanks to Chaplain Mike for the opportunity to beg for sales. And, from of old, thanks to the original Internet Monk, Michael Spencer, who was my blogging colleague, who became my friend, and who was also, my internet rosary “pimp.” Pray for us, Michael.
Some of you have bought prayer beads from me before — thanks for that. In addition to the 1-decade “Catholic” style rosaries (you don’t have to be a Catholic to use them –seriously), I now also make quite a few 1-Week Anglican Rosaries.
Don’t be afraid, it’s just a prayer tool, folks. I have several of each made and ready to go out the door – for you or a friend. You can take a look at what I have ready on my alancreech rosaries FaceBook page –– or take a look at my website for more options. I’ll be very happy to make another for you. Just let me know what you’d like and I’ll get that to you as quickly as I can.
Thanks for letting me invade this sacred space. Peace to all in this house.
+Alan
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Note from CM: Seriously, folks, Alan makes beautiful prayer beads, which I have used personally and given as gifts over the years. You can access his site at any time by clicking on the link on the right side of our Internet Monk site.
Perhaps you have never used a tool like this for prayer and meditation. If not, I recommend it. We are embodied people, and we must take our physicality into consideration when praying and engaging in “spiritual” activities. This is one way we can “keep our bodies under control and make them our slaves” (1Cor 9:27, CEV) as we practice our faith.
In my evangelical/fundamentalist background, we resisted the use of what Michael Spencer called his “gear.” Here’s a post from 2009 in which he addresses those who have problems with it.
Thoughts on “Gear” by Michael Spencer
Evangelicals have no serious arguments to make against the use of “gear.” We’re up to our ears in our own versions of the stuff. We can point out the differences in what we believe is going on, but we’re no innocents. God using matter and the senses works just fine for evangelicals, so get that smirk off your face.
Have you seen how Bibles are marketed in evangelicalism? The covers? The “Favorite preacher” editions? The things we say will happen if you buy the right one?
Have you seen people buying relics from Spurgeon? (Not bones, but publications, pictures, letters.) Have you seen the picture I posted from the Lifeway at Southern Seminary selling Calvin bobbleheads and busts of Spurgeon? If they were actually selling “hair from Spurgeon” how do you think that product would move?
Do you have any idea how many evangelicals buy things like WWJD bracelets, Prayer of Jabez trinkets, infinite numbers of t-shirts, pictures of angels, pictures of Jesus, various versions of the cross, manger scenes, all kinds of Biblical art and statuary?
But seriously, when I was a young Christian, I was given Hook’s famous painting of the laughing Jesus. My wall in my classroom has a full print of Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son.
Someone bought all those “Footprints” gear. And the picture of Jesus carrying the man with the hammer and the nails in his hands? Who bought that?
In my family, old Bibles and relics of Godly ancestors are treasured. My uncle was a revered pastor. I have a Bible, sermon notebooks and a ring he always wore. I have family Bibles from both parents.
Ok, we don’t bow down to these things. Oh wait, what were they doing at the last Promise Keepers meeting I was at? Going down on the floor and bowing in front of a cross.
OK, we don’t interact with images of….Oh wait. Who has all those Passion plays? And who went to see Passion of the Christ 12 times, right there with their Roman Catholic friends.
Ok, we don’t use these things….Oh wait, who came up with prayer cloths and the whole bit about things and people being “anointed?” Who first said “put your hands on the radio/television?”
Well, we don’t go as far…..Oh wait, who has FAN PAGES for their favorite preachers? Who goes across the country just to hear Brother so and so in person? Who can write an ad for a person claiming that God’s Spirit hangs around them like cologne?
We don’t have anything going with the dead…..Oh wait, what are we singing about in all those Gospel songs? Who prints “Daddy’s First Christmas in Heaven” letters in the local paper? Who buys all those books from people claiming to have seen heaven/hell in some near-death experience? And do you have time for some church cemetery stories?
We don’t have pilgrimages….Are we really going to have this conversation? Do you have any water from the Jordan in your desk? Know anyone in Israel now buying stuff?
Can we talk about Judgment House sometime? Can we talk about what goes on at Christian concerts?
Some of Michael Spencer’s gear
Humans are religious. In their religious practices, they endow objects, associations, places, persons and certain sense experiences with meaning. They use these objects, etc. to focus upon God’s presence in the world. All that Catholics/Orthodox do is come out and tell you they believe God mediates his presence through matter. We believe the exact same thing, and can outdo our brothers and sisters in the gear department most days. (I haven’t seen Catholic amusement parks and their bookstores are not quite as numerous as Family Bookstores, Lifeway, etc.)
I’m a new covenant Christian. NONE of this stuff is necessary. It can get out of hand, both in practice and in the money spent on them. But I believe that the New Covenant isn’t the enemy of bread, wine, water, art or a hundred other ways the Spirit uses matter and sense experiences to commune with us.
If you want to point at a string of beads and a cross, see Marian worship and pagan roots, that’s fine. Don’t look too closely into the origins of your Christmas tree or the date for Easter, but that’s fine. I don’t want to pray to Mary or worship her either. I’ve heard and read 30 hours of arguments for the place of Mary in the RCC, I’m not as ignorant as I once was, but the whole supposed post-Gospels career of Mary misses me completely.
But I understand what’s going on with icons, beads, statues and medals. It’s very much what’s going on with your ESV Study Bible, your picture of Calvin, your feelings about your favorite Praise and Worship music and your church’s insistence on an “Altar Call.”
It’s OK with me. Let’s just be honest about it all. The differences matter and we should air them. But evangelicals need to get on the bus to rehab with everyone else.
I absolutely love the quote above. When describing the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible, von Rad made a similar statement when he observed the language such literature uses: “experiences of community life are understood in a predominantly ‘secular’ way or, to be more precise . . . as a secular entity governed by Yahweh.”
In other words, the Bible’s wisdom literature gives the lie to the notion that religious people must fill their mouths with religious language all the time. “God-talk” is not the only way there is to speak about matters that are ultimately divine. It is also overly restrictive and insufficient to describe the actual world God made and the life humans experience in this world.
In God and World in the OT, Fretheim observes how scriptural wisdom teaching is universal. Israel’s wisdom teachers borrowed liberally from their Ancient Near Eastern neighbors and also phrased most of their own instructions in terms that evoke creation at large and not the specific redemptive covenant history of Israel. Wisdom herself speaks of God’s worldwide perspective in Proverbs 8:30-31 —
I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.
Furthermore, wisdom is presented, as the quote from von Rad above indicates, in secular terms. Fretheim comments:
God allows the creation to be itself, which includes both being and becoming. That is, creatures are able to be what they were created to be; at the same time, because the creation is not a fixed reality, creatures are in the process of becoming. In this complex and ongoing process, God honors the createdness of the creatures, while not removing the divine self from their lives.
All of life is sacred, but that does not mean we must talk about all of life in sacred, special language. We can talk about mathematics in mathematical terms, the sciences in scientific terms, history in terms of people and events in the context of natural human and societal processes, human relationships in terms of the actual physical, emotional, down to earth things we experience in life.
As people of faith, we are certainly free to talk about how we think God is involved in any matter — that is a legitimate topic of inquiry. And it is always appropriate to be thankful to God and cognizant of God’s presence. But we don’t have to automatically bring God-language into every conversation or consciously try to speak of God’s participation in every matter we discuss.
In fact, to do so is to act in a way that is contrary to the way God made the world. He has hidden himself, by and large, and left it to humans to discover this world and this life and give our own language to our experiences.
God gave us the Bible, you say. Isn’t that what it’s for? Well, despite what people claim about the Bible, it most certainly is not a textbook for understanding everything in creation and in our life experiences. And in those parts of the Bible where we are given such instruction (the wisdom literature), the language is predominantly universal and secular!
But just in case you don’t feel right about not fitting in with those who are truly “radical” in their faith, “on fire” for God, and “sold out” for Jesus, here’s a video that will load you up with proper spiritual language so you won’t feel so left out. I’m truly not sure what world this kind of speech was made for, but it’s not the one in which I live.
Job and his False Comforters from the Book of Hours of Étienne Chevalier
The Sin of the Orthodox by Daniel Jepsen
Note: by “Orthodox” I am referring to those who are biblical and traditional in their theology; I am not referring to the Orthodox Church.
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Each time I read the book of Job I find deeper meanings. As I read it this week, one idea that kept coming to my mind was the sin of those who thought they had God all figured out. At the conclusion of the book, God responds to Job, and then responds to Eliphaz and his friends. The friends were, you will recall, the “miserable comforters” who debated with Job about the justice of God.
The substance of their great debate could be summarized this way:
The friends argue that since God is just, Job’s afflictions must be the punishment for some hidden sin.
Job argues in response (repeatedly): Look, I don’t have any “secret sin” that deserves this kind of punishment, so God is not being just to me.
The friends then accuse him of undermining the notion of God’s justice.
Job responds by repeating what he knows: I am innocent, yet enduring incredible suffering, and this suffering seems to come from God himself.
Again, Job implies, “God is not being just with me”.
Now, of course, we readers are let into a secret. Chapters one and two describe the scene in heaven where God twice describes Job, “a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil”. In fact, God says, “there is none like him on earth”. So we know before the dialogue begins that the three friends are in the wrong. Job’s afflictions are not punishments. Job is blameless before God.
But imagine if we did not have this information. Imagine we walked in to the story right where the dialogue starts. On the one hand, we have three wise, older men who have an exalted view of God and are eager to defend his ways. They are completely orthodox in their understanding, and their first priority is to protect God’s reputation. On the other hand, you have Job, who seems to be not only suffering, but positively afflicted by God (the suddenness and completeness of his losses cannot be mere coincidence). Job argues that he is blameless, therefore God is not being just, while the orthodox friends argue that God is just, therefore Job is not blameless. Who is right?
Job on the Dung Heap (detail), Bourdichon – Getty Museum
Wait: before you answer, again try to strip your mind of what you know from chapters one and two. And you may find yourself in the position of Elihu. Elihu is a rather mysterious figure. He shows up without introduction and his name is not mentioned again after his long speech (chapters 32-37). His speech does not serve to advance the dialogue at all, and neither God nor Job nor the friends respond to it.
Here is what I think: Elihu is intended to function as a warning to the reader. His viewpoint and speech (“Job, you are wrong; I know wisdom, and you are speaking folly”) are the natural conclusion we are tempted to draw simply by listening to the speeches (without the prologue). In his speeches, he not only agrees with the orthodox friends, but is angry at them for not being able to withstand Job’s arguments.
It is right after his speech that God Himself arrives on the scene and, incredibly, joins in the argument. God does two things.
First, he reproves Job (chapters 38-41) for failing to understand what Kierkegaard would later call “the infinite qualitative distinction” between God and man. Job is wrong because He simply is not in a place to understand God’s ways, and therefore is recklessly hasty in saying that God is unjust to him.
The second thing God does, then, is surprising. He approves Job, especially in contrast to his orthodox friends. Twice he tells the orthodox, “you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has”. In fact, God regards this not only as a mistake, but a sin, for which they need to offer a sacrifice and ask Job(!) to pray for them. God seems less upset by Job yelling at Him than the friends yelling at Job on God’s behalf.
This, then, is the surprising conclusion to the dialogue: God and Elihu are contrasting figures, even though Elihu represents the orthodox views about God. Elihu listens and takes the side of the orthodox friends and rebukes Job, while God listens and ultimately takes the side of Job and rebukes the orthodox.
And this is the heart of the book of Job: God’s ways are, in the final analysis, not able to be fully understood by man, simply because we are never in the position that He is in. Even the most godly (like Job) and the most orthodox and cerebral (like Job’s friends) can never understand God in the same way they understand the things of this world. In fact, God describes the words of the orthodox friends, who felt they were speaking godly wisdom, as “folly”.
Now, here is where the rubber hits the road. I have always taken pride in holding correct, orthodox views of God and theology. And I still feel that the traditional, conservative, biblical viewpoint is the best way to understand the world in which we find ourselves in. Yet, books like Job warn me to be very humble about this. In the end, I have little doubt that my orthodox, evangelical theology will be like the fig leafs the first couple used to clothe themselves: wholly inadequate, and replaced by something else by God’s grace.
What does this mean practically? It means that we should be careful that our study of theology should never outstrip our understanding of “the infinite qualitative distinction”. It means our eagerness to defend God should never come at the expense of loving people. It means we must learn to live out our worldview fully, all the while realizing that when we see Him all of our previous “knowledge” will be fig leaves of foolishness.
, Willard identified the reason so many of us fail to take this path: “I believe our present difficulty is one of misunderstanding how our experiences and actions enable us to receive the grace of God.”
. I have read the book in all four editions, have used it with students and frequently recommended it to others. I continue to find the book, when understood rightly, useful.
, “worldview” has come to be a major movement of evangelicals describing the total Christian faith as it is expressed in a comprehensive approach to all of life. According to Pearcey, the Christian worldview, for instance, has a distinctive approach to science, math or economics. Understanding and advocating this “total truth” approach to the diversity of life is a primary concern of many serious Christians who desire that Christ be Lord of everything in their lives.
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