The Internet Monk Archives

What Was It Like for Christians in Rome When Romans Was Written?

To read Romans 1-11 well, one must know the context, and that context is mostly portrayed in Romans 12-16.

• Reading Romans Backwards, p. 57

• • •

In Scot McKnight’s new and wonderfully helpful book, Reading Romans Backwards, Scot contends that “Romans is too often read as if it were theoretical theology. It’s not. Romans is a pastoral theology front to back or, in our case, back to front, and its deepest concern is Peace, not Privilege, not Power” (p. 57).

The first section of his book is all about the context of that pastoral theology. What was it like for the Christian community in Rome at the time when Romans was written? What issues in the community was Paul addressing?

Scot McKnight calls this section, “A Community Needing Peace,” and today we’ll set forth a summary of the setting in life this epistle was written to confront.

The Christian churches in Rome were in the poorer sections of the city.

The original Christian converts were Jews from the Roman synagogues.

Emperor Claudius expelled many of them in AD49, seeing them as a threat to Roman traditions.

Many of them returned later, especially in the days of Nero.

When they returned they found that the social structure of the churches had changed: “A non-Torah observance culture had formed,” SM writes, noting that Gentiles of higher social status had reshaped the congregations in ways that were less than acceptable to the Jewish believers.

These are the “Strong” and the “Weak” in the churches that Paul addresses in Rom. 14:1-15:13. These groups were in tension and conflict with each other.

The Weak were predominantly Jewish believers who practiced Torah, may have still attended synagogue, and were judgmental toward Gentile ways and culture. They were upset that their Gentile brothers and sisters had begun introducing Torah-unfriendly ways into the churches.

The Strong were predominantly Gentile believers who believed in Jesus as Lord but who had no tradition of keeping Torah and did not feel it necessary in order to follow Jesus. They tended to look down on their Jewish brethren, who were of lower social status.

Thus it was that in Romans Paul was addressing churches trying to cope with problems of resentment, pride, and infighting. At the heart of it all was the “new thing” that God was doing in Christ — bringing disparate people together in one body, one family of faith, hope, and love.

Paul’s mission was to establish mission churches that expanded Israel’s privileged location in God’s redemptive plan by including gentiles. Tensions on top of tensions arose in the blending of diverse families in this new family of God. For Paul, Christoformity* was the only way Jewish and gentile believers could live in peace, love, and reconciliation. His dominant image for the churches — that is, Israel expanded — was family and sibling language: they were not just Jews and gentiles but brothers and sisters in Chrsit. Families are shaped by love for one another, so Paul’s major ethical vision for his mission churches is love (12:9; 13:10; 14:15; 15:30), the kind of love that would lead to peace in the heart of the empire. (p. 59)

• • •

* – “Christoformity” is Scot McKnight’s term for the “lived theology” that Paul was urging upon the Roman Christians. The word describes the process of becoming conformed to Christ: that is, to be a person who is “in Christ” — in union with Christ — and to live “the life of God-in-Christ for the redemption of others” (p. 28).

God’s Good Earth: The Case for an Unfallen Creation, by Jon Garvey, Chapter 5 – Powers and Principalities

God’s Good Earth: The Case for an Unfallen Creation , by Jon Garvey

Chapter 5 – Powers and Principalities

We will continue our review of God’s Good Earth: The Case for an Unfallen Creation, by Jon Garvey. Today is Chapter 5 – Powers and Principalities. To complete the Biblical picture of the non-human creation, Jon gives a brief examination of “powers and principalities” as mentioned in the NT. The reason he considers them relevant is because some references make them appear to be “natural forces” as well as personal angelic or demonic. And some traditional views attributes satanic agency to the natural creation.

Jon deals with the concept, especially more common since the Enlightenment, that powers and authorities have an institutional reality. He notes there must be more to them than ontological evil powers, or we would be opening the door to theological dualism. He says, “Whether or not they are involved now in moral evil, these are ‘powers’ and ‘authorities’ created by God and therefore, presumably, with some intended ongoing role for good in creation. Our task is to identify what those roles are.”

Paul uses “authorities” to commend Christians to respect earthly political authorities in Romans 13:1-2; and it is not obvious the he is referring to anything fundamentally different from other mentions of powers and authorities elsewhere in scripture:

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

Based on this passage, on the face of it, it appears that in the political sphere, all God-given authority operates through these powers. If that is so, their created purpose is to somehow enable human government, whether good or oppressive, or even unbelieving, to function.

But this impersonal interpretation does not do justice to the specific mention Paul makes in passages like Ephesians 6:12, “12. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”. A possible explanation is cited by Jon in the what Owen Barfield termed “correspondence” i.e. there is a spiritual correlation between power exerted by these supra-human forces, and the power exerted by , and the accountability of humans for, their own treatment of others. Pilate has power, but only because it is given from above, and yet he is its accountable wielder, not merely its victim. Here is an interesting take from Richard Beck, but I have to part company with my progressive friends at this point and side with Jon and the traditional interpretation of a personal evil being(s), however un-enlightened that seems to make me.

But what is the role of these “authorities and powers” in the natural creation? Jon says:

I suggest that in the original economy of creation that the “powers and principalities” were created, like the other angelic beings, as servants for the people created in the image of God, that is, in the image of the Son. “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” That means that however personal their power, it was intended to be under the control of sinless humanity to assist in the government of the world, under God.

… the fact is that it does not appear that any role in the running of the natural world is attributed directly to such powers and authorities, either in the New Testament or in the Old, whereas God claims exactly such a role… The conclusion appears to be that neither the sin of humanity, nor the corruption of the angelic powers, is associated in Scripture with any major changes in nature.

That concludes Jon’s consideration of the biblical material.

Next, in Section 2, he discusses the history of the doctrine of nature, with reference to the fall, through the last 2,000 years, and he shows how he believes the balance has shifted from a strongly positive view of the goodness of creation to a negative one. He also looks at the possible reasons why the so-called “traditional view” became prominent around the sixteenth century.

A Post-Progressive Take on the Bible

A Post-Progressive Take on the Bible

Richard Beck is moving fast in his “Post-Progressive” series, so I’m going to double up this week on my comments to try and catch up. His fourth post is about progressive Christians and the Bible.

As I described in Part 2, progressive Christians have a fraught relationship with the Bible. During the post-evangelical season of deconstruction the Bible looms large as a faith challenge.

There are two main challenges:

First, there’s a lot of violence in the Old Testament that seems to be sanctioned by God. The herem texts are the key area of concern, the texts where during the conquest of Canaan God commands the Israelites to kill every man, woman, and child in the conquered towns.

A related concern here is how violence is implicated in the atonement, in Jesus’ death on the cross. Why does salvation require a killing?

Second, the ethical witness of the Bible on the issues of slavery, gender and sexuality, if read in a flat, literal way, is problematic for many progressive Christians.

Consequently, progressive Christians spend a lot of time struggling with the Bible, devoting great energy on hermeneutical approaches that allow them to read the Bible non-violently and in a way that supports a liberal, humanistic ethical vision.

As a post-progressive, I agree with all this. I read the Bible non-violently and from a liberationist perspective (as good news for the oppressed and marginalized). That said, as a post-progressive I have concerns with how progressive Christians approach and handle the Bible.

Beck’s concern about what he observes when progressive Christians read the Bible is two-fold.

First, he finds many of them fragile when it comes to the Bible. They are fearful and suspicious when approaching scripture. Their first instinct is to find what’s problematic in the Bible. They miss the joy of scripture. They approach it as skeptics first, mistrustful of what they are going to find, already leaning toward a conclusion that the Bible has been used in so many harmful ways over the course of history that one must first deconstruct it before finding anything of value in it.

Second (and this is actually more fundamental) they already have a progressive moral vision which is their starting point, and they pre-judge the Bible before ever really reading it (if they do much at all).

Put bluntly, progressives don’t read the Bible much because they already know what the Bible is supposed to say. God is always being judged, criticized, and indicted by a progressive moral vision. Progressive Christians believe in morality rather than the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And when that happens the Bible is thoroughly tamed and captured by the progressive moral and political imagination. The Word of God is stuffed into a progressive moral box and is not free to startle, surprise, challenge, criticize, indict, unsettle, disturb and interrupt us.

These kinds of problems, of course, are not unique to the progressive Christians whom Richard Beck observes. We all struggle with bringing our own stuff to the Bible and then shaping our reading of it to our own presuppositions and personal, culture-bound perceptions.

As a confessing Christian I must trust the tradition, which has given me the Bible. It tells me that the Bible is the living Word of God, our sacred scriptures, bread for our journey and light for our path. This is my starting point, no matter how critical I may become with regard to how the Church has interpreted the scriptures over the centuries.

As Beck affirms: “From a prophetic aspect, while I still have questions and concerns about the Bible, as a post-progressive I spend less time questioning the Bible and more time letting the Bible question me.”

Another Look: The Lansdale Statement (Peter Enns, 2017)

Moses receiving the tablets of the Law. Chagall

Note from CM: We ran this a couple of years ago, when it was suddenly all the rage for Christians to publish “statements” taking stands on various issues. Noting that the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) recently committed to one of those statements in good Presbyterian dogmatic fashion, I thought we might revisit Pete Enns’s counter-statement to such statements.

Then you can have a chance to make a statement about the statement and counter-statement. And perhaps then I will come out with a further statement to clarify why I like this counter-statement and have my doubts about the original statement. Followed by your statements in response. And so on…

World without end. Amen. Amen.

• • •

Another Look: The Lansdale Statement (Peter Enns, 2017)

THE LANSDALE STATEMENT
By Peter Enns

PREAMBLE
Really? Another public here-I-stand “statement” that claims to set the record straight once and for all on a sensitive and complex issue our planet is dealing with? What is it with American Evangelicals and Fundamentalists?

ARTICLE 1
We affirm that God, having given us minds, rejoices when we use them.

We deny that God intended Scripture to relieve us of this responsibility.

ARTICLE 2
WE affirm that Scripture, by God’s wisdom, was written by actual people in actual historical contexts for actual contextual reasons, and that such contexts are central to proper biblical understanding and application.

We deny that Scripture, which reflects the wisdom of the Creator, is simply sitting there waiting to be used irrespective of its various contexts.

ARTICLE 3
We affirm that humans, who are created in God’s image, who are endowed with powers of reason, analysis, and an irrepressible curiosity, have thereby made enormous strides in understanding the cosmos, the nature of humanity, and the wonders of the world around us, and that many who have contributed to these strides are fellow believers in Jesus.

We deny that Scripture when handled in willful isolation from or dismissal of such strides is “faithful” or pleasing to the Creator.

ARTICLE 4
We affirm that the Christian faith, though a broadly unified and distinct tradition, is both historically and globally not monolithic in its expression, and that therefore true Godly wisdom is found in humility and dialogue among the manifold voices of the Christian faith.

We deny that (though it’s a free country) a small number of largely white males living in one moment of the human drama are in a place to make statements that claim abiding normativity for all Christians for all time.

ARTICLE 5
We affirm that all our theological utterances, because we are not God but mere humans, are contextually generated and bounded.

We deny that any of our theological utterances can claim “plain fact” neutrality, and therefore reflect unfiltered the Divine mind.

ARTICLE 6
We affirm that human experience is rich and complex, presents us with numerous ambiguities, and therefore defies simple categorization.

We deny that the Creator has assigned to us the task of sorting out and simplifying the richness and complexities of the human drama.

ARTICLE 7
We affirm that the binaries of Genesis 1 (which includes animals restricted to living on land, in the sea, or in the air) reflect—by the will and wisdom of God—ancient, ideal conceptions of cosmic order.

We deny that the binaries of Genesis 1 “teach” that amphibians, mammals that fly, live in the ocean, or lay eggs, or any other creatures of God’s creation that do not fit the Genesis 1 binary, are outside of God’s wise design.

ARTICLE 8
We affirm that God is the infinite and inscrutable Creator, which is itself affirmed in Scripture, and therefore we should be careful to claim to be speaking for God as if nothing could be more obvious.

We deny that God’s voice is easily replicated in our own.

ARTICLE 9
We affirm that public statements are largely written for the already convinced, are therefore belligerent by design, too often passive-aggressive in tone, and therefore are a colossal waste of time, not to mention make it that much more difficult for others to bear witness to Jesus.

We deny that Jesus is rooting for us to write more statements.

Signed,

Pete Enns, Lansdale, PA (white male)

My dogs, Gizmo, Miley, and Stassi

My cats, Snowy, Marmalade, and Baron

My rabbit, Thumper

I’m sure a lot of other people.

The Limits of Social and Political Activism

Richard Beck’s continuing series on his journey to becoming “post-progressive” includes a critique of progressive Christianity’s priority of political activism and social justice.

Beck knows that there is a great deal of support in the biblical story for this emphasis, and thinks it appropriate that this is an emphasis for Chrsitian faith and practice. “Building upon these biblical foundations, liberation theology is a dominant impulse within progressive Christianity,” he writes.

Nevertheless, he critiques the political activism of the progressive Christian movement in much the same way we here at Internet Monk have spoken against the Christian Right and “Culture War Christianity.” Here is his argument, in bullet points:

“…because of this focus on social justice, progressive Christianity is tempted to reduce to and equate itself with progressive political activism.”

“…when equated with political action–control of the state–progressive Christianity is reduced to the science of power.”

“…when reduced to progressive political activism progressive Christianity loses its prophetic capacity to criticize the political left when it falls short of the kingdom of God.”

“…when reduced to political action progressive Christianity turns toward the state rather than the church as the hope of the world.”

In brief, “social justice” Christians on the left can make the same fundamental theological mistake as “culture war” Christians on the right: to presume that the cause of Christ wins by winning, and that winning means taking power over the world.

This is what I call “the great methodological heresy” — that Christians win by winning.

In order to guarantee a win, we trust in “horses and chariots” rather than in the name of our God.

We adopt methods by which the “rulers of the Gentiles” lord it over their subjects, and forget to become servants of all.

This is all very complicated in a country like the United States, with our ideal of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Our own political system encourages us to actively participate in the process and to advocate and work for the causes we believe in. But no matter how ideal our system may be, it inevitably becomes corrupted toward power grabbing, war mongering, and lording it over others. Violence, and not self-giving love, is its modus operandi. In the end, it is not Jesus-shaped.

The faith community becomes inextricably intertwined with odd bedfellows, and the schisms that result in the Body of Christ divide brothers and sisters and pit them against each other.

And so, Richard Beck affirms:

I AM A PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN in that Christians must prioritize social justice, seeking to reform and resist policies and economies that oppress, harm, and exclude. Lives are at stake.

I AM A POST-PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN in that I believe that the kingdom of God cannot be reduced to grasping and wielding the power of the nation state. Lives are at stake, but Babylon will not save us. I believe the kingdom of God speaks prophetic words of rebuke to the political right and left. I believe that the church, rather than the outcome of a presidential election, is the hope of the world, and the investments of my energy, time, emotions, and resources reflect that conviction.

As a post-evangelical, I concur.

Another Look: The Form of Preaching and Its Context

And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons.

• Justin Martyr, First Apology c. 150 AD

Here is the kind of preaching I hope to do and long to hear when I worship with a faith community on Sundays:

Rich in nourishing content, with a usual focus on making one main point

Pastoral (gracious, sensitive, compassionate — good preaching is loving your congregation through words)

Concise (I’d say twenty minutes max)

Literate about life, human nature, and the ways of the world

Imaginative and poetic (creates a metaphorical world and draws us in)

Faithful to the Story of the faith and the particular text being preached

Brings the congregation into the presence of Jesus so that we might encounter him again and have our faith renewed

Prepares the congregation to be sent into daily life “between Sundays” as followers of Jesus who lay down their lives for others

In my opinion, this kind of preaching functions best within the context of the traditional liturgy structure:

Gathering together before God
Hearing the Word
Coming to the Table
Being Sent into the World

Please don’t misunderstand me — when I say “liturgy,” I am not suggesting it must be a particular style of service (such as traditional or contemporary). I have argued before that the form and order of the liturgy is the important thing. The Christian worship service is and has traditionally been understood as a meal gathering.

The purpose of the Word in such a gathering is to reinforce the gospel of Jesus that has brought us together, which gives us life, and which we will celebrate and be nourished by once again at the Table. We are then sent out into the world to live in this good news daily with Jesus among our neighbors.

In other words, the reading and proclamation of the Word is a community-forming act. Like the tradition of families having regular Sunday dinners and spending time in conversation and storytelling, in the the Christian meal gathering such preaching helps bind us together, satisfy (and increase!) our hunger, deepen our organic ties with one another, and equip us to bear the family name in daily life. “The goal of our instruction is love…” (1Tim. 1:5).

The kind of preaching we hear (and the kind of service we participate in) determines the kind of community that will be formed.

That’s why I believe so strongly in the kind of preaching I commend here.

The IM Saturday Monks Brunch: July 6, 2019

Fall River Fourth (2017)

Americans need to embrace a more mature and realistic patriotism, one that recognizes that everything is not perfect but that there is still something worth celebrating. We must learn to love America without being blind to its faults. This love must be shown not by ignoring America’s problems but by dedicating ourselves to dealing with them.

Patriotism should not depend on perfection. It should not depend on great leaders. Patriotism is a commitment to a dream that America can be better, that the vision of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law is something worth striving for.

America is a nation of many people, none of them perfect. Christians recognize that we are all sinners, but we are also made in the image and likeness of God.

Can we embrace America as a community of sinners who want to do better, who beg for God’s help and mercy? Can we have a patriotism that is not blind to evil but still celebrates the dream of a better America? If so, then the Fourth of July is a time to celebrate but also to dream.

• Thomas Reese, RNS

People on the east side of Manhattan watch a fireworks display, part of Independence Day festivities, on July 4, 2019, in New York. (The Atlantic)

QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK…

• How did crude oil and Christianity combine to make modern America?

Darren Dochuk’s landmark book, Anointed with Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America, at once builds on this important body of work and represents its most stunning achievement. Authors rarely deliver so fully on their titles. Through the stories of believers hot in pursuit of both God and “black gold,” Dochuk indeed opens a breathtaking new window onto the making of the modern nation.

• Review by Heath W. Carter at CT

• Which place did the church planter and his wife choose to rent in New York City?

A Brownstone in East Harlem (one bedroom, $3300 per month)?

A studio in Hell’s Kitchen (mid-$2000s to low $3000s)?

A studio in an Upper West Side tower (low $3000s)?

• Joyce Cohen, New York Times

• What will win the “The Greatest Hymn of All Time” Tournament?

The Elite Eight are: “Holy, Holy, Holy!”; “Be Thou My Vision”; “O Come, All Ye Faithful”; “My Hope Is Built/On Christ the Solid Rock”; “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”; “Of the Father’s Love Begotten”; “Holy God, We Praise Your Name”; and “How Great Thou Art.”

• Adelle M. Banks, RNS

A worker helps prepare for the Fourth of July celebration at the Lincoln Memorial. (Matthew McClain, Wash. Post)

THE PHILISTINES: ANCIENT MIGRANTS

Turns out the Philistines might not have been “philistine” after all. A recent DNA study has linked them to southern Europe, from where they migrated across the Mediterranean to biblical lands.

The ancient Philistines, the Biblical villains whose origins have puzzled scholars for decades, came to the Middle East from southern Europe more than 3000 years ago, new DNA testing has shown.

The genetic findings came from skeletons unearthed by archaeologists in Israel in 2016, including the bones of infants buried beneath Philistine houses, archaeologists said in a paper published on Wednesday.

…”Our study has shown for the first time that the Philistines immigrated to this region in the 12th century (BC),” said Daniel Master, director of the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon, a coastal city where the first ever Philistine cemetery was found.

“We didn’t show it by showing similar styles of pottery, we didn’t show it by looking at texts, we showed it by looking at the DNA of the people themselves,” Master said. “We can see at Ashkelon new DNA coming in from this immigrant population that is really changing the whole region.”

…”This ancestral component is derived from Europe, or to be more specific, from southern Europe, so the ancestors of the Philistines must have traveled across the Mediterranean and arrived in Ashkelon sometime between the end of the Bronze age and the beginning of the Iron age,” Feldman said.

“There would be a lot more that we can say if we had more data, for example we could maybe more precisely pinpoint the source of this migration,” she said.

Earlier work by the Ashkelon team has suggested the Philistines were actually no “philistines”. Excavations of a 3000-year-old cemetery in 2016 found bodies buried with jewellery and perfumed oil.

Freedom Festival Fireworks display, Indianapolis, IN. July 4, 2019 (Indianapolis Star)

THE DEMISE OF MAD MAGAZINE

Like the author of the following excerpt, I was the proper age for Mad Magazine when it was at its peak. I outgrew it eventually, and now comes the news that Mad is coming to an end. David Von Drehle at the Washington Post suggests it is not because the world has likewise outgrown it, but rather because the whole world is now mad!

To be subversive…requires a dominant culture to subvert. Mad was the smart-aleck spawn of the age of mass media, when everyone watched the same networks, flocked to the same movies and saluted the same flag. Without established authorities, it had no reason for being. Like the kid in the back of the classroom tossing spitballs and making fart sounds, a journal of subversive humor is funny only if there’s someone up front attempting to maintain order.

We now live in a time when everyone’s a spitballer, from the president of the United States on down. America elected the world’s oldest seventh-grader in 2016; we knew what we were getting from the earliest days of his campaign. Asked about one opponent, the successful business executive Carly Fiorina, Trump replied, “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?” He bullied the rest of the field with stupid nicknames. The hijinks continue to this day. Recently, Trump play-scolded Vladimir Putin as the Russian president smirked in reply. “Don’t meddle in the election, please,” said Trump — as if the two of them had been caught giving wedgies and were forced to apologize. What, us worry?

Today, whether we’re doing history or current events, commerce or religion, we’re awash in iconoclasm but nearly bereft of icons. Everyone’s a court jester now, eager to expose the foibles of kings and queens. But the joke’s on us, because we no longer have authority figures to keep in check. We’re needling balloons that have already gone limp.

Fourth of July. Photo by Keri Logan at Flickr

TECH IS GREAT…WHEN IT WORKS

Drivers with smartphones these days don’t often get truly lost, thanks to navigation services such as Google Maps. But what happened in Colorado is a reminder that even with new technology, some shortcuts can still go very wrong.

That’s how nearly 100 drivers wound up in a muddy field, gridlocked, earlier this week. One of them, Connie Monsees, described the incident to ABC News’ Start Here podcast.

Monsees said she was stuck in traffic on the way to pick up her husband at the Denver International Airport.

“So I pulled out my Google Maps to see if there is a better way to go, and it told me to take the next exit and it would be about half the time,” Monsees said. Naturally, she took it. But the road quickly becomes a dirt road.

“I’m following this line of cars and my thought was, ‘Well, there’s so many other people going, it must be OK,’ ” Monsees told ABC. “So I went ahead … but the thing was, it wasn’t like you could choose to make a U-turn.”

Days of rain had created a “muddy mess of a field,” she added. Car after car drove in and got stuck.

Monsees had four-wheel drive, so she could eventually get out of the mud. She even picked up two other stranded people and took them with her. But others ended up stuck in the muck for a longer time.

• NPR

Redwood City Fourth of July Celebration – Parade and Car Show (2016). Photo at Flickr by Ed Bierman

WORLD CUP FINAL: U.S.A. vs. THE NETHERLANDS

On Sunday at 11am ET, the mighty United States will battle the bright orange Netherlands as two soccer-crazed nations tune in.

Will the U.S. continue its march of greatness undaunted, or will the Dutch pull off an upset for the ages?

Scot McKnight’s Brilliant Insight

Scot McKnight’s Brilliant Insight

This summer, I’ve dipped back into Paul’s epistle to the Romans, something I come back to time and time again. I’m trying to work through at least the passages that make the major argument in Douglas A. Campbell’s immense study, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul. But as I read it, I find the same hesitation that always seems to rise up in my spirit when I study most Romans commentaries.

Starting with chapter 1 and reading through Romans from the beginning is daunting. One is almost immediately immersed in the specialized terms and complex arguments that have formed the basis of so much dogmatic theology over the course of church history. One gets the impression when trying to tackle Romans that you are reading an academic tome, preparing for a master’s level exam. And frankly, it can soon exhaust the reader.

Now along comes Scot McKnight and his new book, suggesting there might be a different way of reading Romans, a way which might shed light on why Paul made all those arguments in the first place.

Reading Romans forwards, beginning at 1:1 and closing the letter at 16:27, is both the best way to read Romans and its biggest problem. Reading Romans forwards often enough leads to fatigue by the time one gets to 9:1, and even more so by the time one arrives at 12:1. The impact of the fatigue is that the specific elements of the faith community in Rome as detailed in chapters 12 through 16 are ignored for how one reads chapters 1 through 8 or chapters 1 through 11. I am not proposing, then, that the right way to read Romans begins with chapter 12, but I do propose that a correction is in order and that fresh light can be thrown on chapters 1 through 11 by first taking a deep look at chapters 12-16, then 9-11, then 1-8 (since they work together in a special way).

• Reading Romans Backwards, p. ix

One of the great insights I gained in seminary (and Scot was a NT teacher there at the time) was the pastoral nature of the New Testament. My previous experience with the Bible had by and large skipped over the incidental portions of the NT letters, seeing them as generally extraneous to the “meat” of the text. Likewise, we were always taught that the imperatives of the letters always grew out of the indicatives. The application for our lives followed the doctrine. The most important thing in studying the NT epistles was to get the teaching right, and the life lessons would grow naturally out of that.

But what if that’s not always the way it works? Scot suggests that an important key to understanding Romans just might be to see the situation in life that the Roman churches were dealing with in the application and incidental sections of the epistle (chapters 12-16). Then the reader can go back and see how Paul’s arguments give answers for those settings and circumstances.

For decades I have read and listened to scholars and heard preachers on Romans 1-8, and one would think, after listening or reading, that those meaty chapters were written for a theological lectureship rather than to a local church or set of house churches in Rome in the first century when Nero was emperor and Paul was planning his future mission to Spain. One would think the listeners were theological savants geared up for the latest theory of atonement or soteriology or salvation-history.

…Romans is about theology, but it isn’t mere theology — it isn’t abstract theology. Romans advocates for a via vitae, both for the individual and for the community of faith in Rome.

…I have chosen to read Romans backwards in order to demonstrate that this letter is a pastoral theology…

• pp. x, xiv

American Independence Day 2019

American Independence Day 2019

On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln gave “remarks” at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where a savage, decisive battle had been fought in the American Civil War. Those “remarks” have endured as a timeless statement of the American project — to establish and maintain a “nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Lincoln grounds his understanding of our country’s principles most fundamentally, not in the Constitution, but in the Declaration of Independence, the signing of which we commemorate on this annual holiday. The Declaration encapsulates the American dream which the Constitution was designed (imperfectly) to administrate.

The southern states also based their decisions to secede on the Declaration of Independence. South Carolina’s declaration (Dec. 24, 1860), for example, directly appealed to the founding document’s first paragraph:

“They further solemnly declared that whenever any ‘form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government.’ Deeming the Government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the Colonies ‘are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.'”

…Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted.

The South was declaring a second American Revolution. Claiming that the Federal government had repeatedly violated its own constitution and that the northern states had banded together to elect President Lincoln, a person openly hostile to slavery and thus incapable of leading a common government for all the states, they stated their intention to secede rather than endure what they deemed to be a lesser status than the North. They saw themselves firmly in the tradition of the founding generation.

The Civil War was essentially a battle over the meaning of the Declaration of Independence. The meaning of America.

For Abraham Lincoln, the emphasis lay in what he saw to be a more fundamental principle set down in the document. The president put his finger on “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” And the next phrase: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

A government of the people, by the people, for the people – to secure the rights of all people.

Lincoln’s great concern was that the American project would fail and “perish from the earth.” He had been elected by the people. He and other governmental officials were not sovereign rulers but democratically elected public servants chosen by the governed to represent them. Their job was to maintain and strengthen a Union designed to exist in perpetuity for the common good through an ongoing “perfecting” process. In his first inaugural Lincoln said:

Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was “to form a more perfect Union.”

The original American Revolution had been waged against the tyranny of a king and a sovereign government established, it was claimed, by divine decree. However, if the southern states should be allowed to revolt against and secede from a government formed by the people’s choice, they would not be taking the path of legitimate revolution (against despotism and tyranny) as outlined in the Declaration. Indeed, they would be acting directly against the intentions of the founders. Lincoln profoundly disagreed with the South’s appeal to our founding document.

Abraham Lincoln is one of my most beloved heroes. His more than any other voice has shaped my American identity. I profoundly lament the horrific tragedy of the Civil War. And I mourn that in many ways, that war is still being fought in thousands of more subtle battlefields across our land every day. I deeply disagree with my fellow citizens who continue to sow partisan division and refuse to extend equal rights, opportunities, and protections to all Americans. And though Lincoln’s Second Inaugural contains the words of his that I love most, it all ultimately comes back to the Gettysburg Address and its insistence on the fundamental principles in the Declaration of Independence.

Which we celebrate today.

And which we are still learning (far too slowly) to incorporate into our national life.

Photo by Kevin Burkett at Flickr

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Reconstruction

I AM A PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN because I believe that doubting, questioning and searching is a legitimate and mature expression of faith, and that for many Christians a season of deconstruction is a necessary and vital part of the faith journey.

I AM A POST-PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN because I believe a faith journey that terminates and exhausts itself in doubt, negation, and deconstruction will eventually lead to a loss of faith or to a faith that is functionally atheistic. Deconstruction must be followed by reconstruction, and while seasons of deconstruction will continue to play a vital and necessary role going forward, and dark nights of the soul always a live possibility, the reconstructed Christian experience should become increasingly characterized by positivity, joy, affirmation, praise, hope, and faithfulness.

• Richard Beck, Post-Progressive Christianity (2)

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“Deconstruction must be followed by reconstruction.”

For me, that reconstruction (as a post-evangelical, not a post-progressive) has come primarily…

Through moving from parish ministry as a pastor to serving as a hospice chaplain.

Through moving from the church world into the “ordinary” world of daily life in the community.

Through engaging in an ongoing process of trying to understand what the Bible is and what it is for.

Through moving from immersion in the culture of American evangelicalism to a less separatistic, more “religionless” Christianity (Bonhoeffer).

Through abandoning a more “missionary” mindset to practicing more of a “love your neighbor” mindset.

Through embracing a sacramental perspective, in which God is really present in his creation and we participate in the divine reality.

Through disavowing revivalistic or other deficient models of “worship,” and embracing the fundamentals of historic liturgy.

Through focusing on three primary areas of biblical study: (1) Creation, (2) the Gospels, (3) Eschatology. These foci have helped me construct (1) a robust sense of vocation, (2) a more Jesus-shaped mindset rather than a biblicist mindset, (3) an earthier future hope.

Through moving away from a primarily forensic view of justification to one more akin to theosis, in which the believer participates in the life of God through union with Christ.

As you can see from the many links above (and these are just a sampling), this reconstruction project has largely coincided with my time here writing at Internet Monk.

I have lots of areas where I’ve perhaps gone through the “deconstruction” stage without beginning to rebuild anything solid in its place. For our purposes here, the main one is…

I’m still, to some degree, in the post-ecclesiastical wilderness. When it comes to the institution of the church, I’m still somewhat of a “square peg.”