Review of Andrew Root's "Faith Formation in a Secular Age" (Part 8)
10. The Music of Formation
Secular 3 tells
us there is no living person as faith’s content. So we focus on the process of
faith formation designed to secure greater commitment to our institutions.
Faith formation seeks commitment with faith itself the goal. Separating faith
from its content is ultimately untenable.
The Music of Ministry
“To have faith is to be in Christ;
it is to have the faith of Christ because Christ lives in you. The way into
Christ is not through a program, a principle, or even a doctrine. The only way
“in” to this union, as Michael Gorman says, is through a death experience (the
cross, negation).” (3738)
Substantiation of our death
experience as union in the person of Jesus is that divine action enters as
ministry.
“Ministry is more than just a
generic (natural) relationality; rather, ministry is a form of action that
draws spirit into Spirit.” (3753) “Ministry is the deepest form of
relationality because in ministry your person is shared in so deeply that the
story that gives coherence to your being is completely claimed by the new story
of the love, compassion, and mercy of the minister who shares your place.”
(3762)
“The cross is, no doubt,
the ultimate of death experiences, but it is also simultaneously the ultimate
act of ministry that stretches to the deepest of levels (to the very being of
God). What makes the cross atoning is not only that Jesus takes our sin but
also that he enters death so deeply that now every death experience becomes the
concrete locale for Jesus to minister his being to our own, to hide us in his
life of ministry, so that we no longer live but Christ lives in us (Gal. 2:20)
through the act of ministry that binds our being to his.” (3780)
To be formed in Christ is to be
-to give yourself to the story of
Jesus in and through a death experience
-in a community that retells the
stories of how the living Jesus came to us and ministered to us through
negation
-like Ananias and become another’s
minister entering into their death experience and sharing in the being of God.
-“in Christ by being ministered to
and ministering to others through the cross of their death experience, allowing
our own personhood to be the tangible manifestation of resurrection.” (3794)
Now Back to the Music
Phil.2:6-11 great song of Christian
faith.
“Ananias has embodied the hymn in his
coming to Paul as a humble minister, embracing Paul through his death
experience. The humility of being another’s minister mediates the new reality
of God’s own being.” (3827)
Being can be
shared if it is wrapped in kenosis because this kenosis is the being of God.
From “Although” to “Because”
Phil.2:6: often take “although he was
in the form of God” as if it meant even though he’s really cool, powerful, and
mighty, he became less or other than that in the incarnation. This cuts the
heart out of kenosis and faith formation. NT scholars of late though have been
taking the Greek participle as “because” instead of “although.” Jesus humbles
himself “because” not “in spite of” being in the for of God.
“Kenosis, therefore, does not mean
Christ’s emptying himself of his divinity (or of anything else), but rather
Christ’s exercising his divinity, his equality with God.” (3863).
“Faith formation from
Paul’s perspective means linking hypostasis (the personal story of mystical
encounter) with kenosis (to be called and sent to persons as minister). To
share in the being of God is to live out of the likeness (image) of God, which
is to be a person in ministry (which is to be hypostatic in kenosis).” (3863)
Freedom
Freedom is
central for Paul because it is relationship to a person.
Because Jesus
comes to us as a person, as a minister, we come to others in the same personal,
free, way as ministers. And all this “because” Jesus was in the form of God and
came among us in divine freedom.
Keeping “Although” Alongside “Because”
Even with the “because”
element of the Greek participle there remains a certain “although” element as
well. “Although in freedom Jesus
could have opted to be something other than a minister, he conformed to the
kenotic being of the Father, becoming a servant, by becoming the minister to
humanity by taking on the being of humanity.” (3889)
“This hymn
provides a structure where the object and the process of faith are fused in the
divine action of the cross itself.” (3889) The song is not only about Christ
but about the way of life of his people in the world.
The Pattern of the Disciple
If ministry is not kenotic it is
disconnected from the divine being. “Kenosis is what constitutes ministry as a
dynamic union of being through act.” (3905)
Paul’s structure of faith formation
from Phil.2:6-11: is “although [x] not [y] but [z].” Michael Gorman notes,
“As the obedient suffering
servant who behaves in the pattern ‘although [x] not [y] but [z],’ Christ
displays not only true divinity but also true humanity. Unlike Adam, he does
not exploit his status as God’s image-bearer or disobey God the Father. Rather,
he acts in obedience obedience to the Father in a way that serves not himself
but others, bringing about their redemption from sin.”[1]
This
formula fuses the object and process of faith.
“The process and the
object of faith are linked because the ‘although’ is the ‘because’ of the Christ
hymn in Philippians 2; the ‘although’ acts of humility are bound in the ‘because’
being of God. This becomes the way to seek divine action through negation, the
way of participating in union with Christ through ministry itself. Kenosis can
lead to a transcendent sharing in personhood (hypostasis) because it
encompasses the fullness of cruciform love.”[2]
Theosis
Gorman defines theosis:
“Theosis is transformative participation in the kenotic, cruciform character
and life of God through Spirit-enabled conformity to the incarnate, crucified,
and resurrected/glorified Christ, who is the image of God.”[3]
Athanasius: God
became humans so humans might become God.
“Theosis contends
that union with Christ is an ontic relation that transforms us, giving us
participation in the divine being—making us into God.” In other words, union
with Christ is a reality that changes us.
For us to become
like God is not to become a superhuman, it is to become fully human. “So
theosis is not owning the essence of God but sharing in the energy of God.” (4036)
“. . . we share in God’s energy as God’s very act of ministry, that a kenotic
transformation of our being, through the Spirit, turns us into ministers.” (4047)
“Theosis, then, is to be
drawn into the being of God through the humility of the kenotic, which sends us
like Ananias to enter the death experience of our neighbor as the very
manifestation of our sharing in the being of God through the ministering
humanity of Jesus. Theosis is the ontological transformation of sharing in the
being of God by encountering the kenotic energy of God, which seeks to share in
hypostasis or personhood through the experience of death (the cross). Theosis
means being a minister who shares in hypostasis through kenosis.56 Russell
explains that, “as Christians transformed by Christ we become not ‘who’ God is
but ‘what’ [God] is, sharing in [God’s] divine plan for the reconciliation and
glorification of humankind.” (4069-4078)
Moralistic Therapeutic Deism can be
counterpointed by Hypostatic Kenotic Theosis
11: Is God a Favor
Bestower or a Gift Giver?
Transformation
is required because we are bearing witness to God’s reality in Secular 3 which
denies that reality.
“Knocking against
the scaffolding of immanence, many people are compelled, ironically, to look
for meaning and transformation beyond the transcendentless presumptions of
Secular 3. Taylor has called this tendency ‘the nova effect.’” Those
echoes of transcendence we met earlier.
Justification, Faith, and a Mad Accountant
Justification by
faith is a hallmark of Protestantism. Christ’s righteousness is bestowed on us.
Too often, though, this faith turns out to be sedative, tamping down any
impetus to action.
Under the
influence of Secular 3, faith also becomes little more than a decision to
trust. Justification becomes bestowing a status without transformation. “Too
see justification outside participation is to forget that the “although” is
based in the “because”; in other words, it is to strip kenosis from our visions
of justification.” (4527)
“But for Paul,
the “although” is indeed the “because,” meaning God takes on the “although”
action to justify “because” God is minister.” (4537)
“Faith in
relation to justification is not just the trust to believe that our bank
account is full. Rather, it is the very experience of receiving the person of
Jesus Christ into our being.” (4537)
“Justification is
Jesus entering into our death experience so that we might share in the life of
God. Justification then signals that faith is ultimately not our own act but is
the invitation to share in Jesus’s own faith.” (4546)
“Then who this
God is, revealed in justification, is not an accountant or a scorekeeper but a
minister who comes to your dying person with a personhood (hypostasis) that
enters your death experiences as an act of ministry (kenosis) so that you might
be free from serving death and be (not a clairvoyant shaman but) a minister to
your neighbor (theosis).” (4554)
Justification as Ministry
Justification means that we are
always in need of a minister. And that minister is Jesus for he is the only one
who fully lives from the ministry of the Father. We live by his faith, thus we
no longer live but he lives in us (Gal.2:20).
From Cross to Resurrection
“Justification by faith, then, is a
death-and-resurrection experience.” Without the cross, the ministry of
justification that brings the transformation of the real presence of Christ is
lost.” (4594)
“Faith is bound
in the person of Jesus, because Jesus is the person who has had his death
experience so ministered to by the Father that Jesus has become life itself.” (4594)
To be justified
is to be co-crucified but also co-resurrected. The transformation that comes
with justification is theosis. “theosis is to share in God, not in power and
might, but as a minister who shares in the glory of God by experiencing the
fusion of the divine with the human through a hypostatic union—by sharing in
and ministering to persons.” (4602)
A Body
Personhood cannot
be disconnected from embodiment. “Rather, to experience the transformation of
theosis is to have your body ministered to and sent to minister to other
bodies.” (4609)
Christ is holy
because he allows the Spirit to transform him into a minister, sharing in the
death experiences of the other. Holiness is the willingness to enter death
experiences through kenosis.
“Holiness and
theosis are connected, but as such neither can ever be divided from
resurrection. It is resurrection manifested in the witness of the act and being
of the minister who brings the transformation of theosis.” (4627)
“This, then, is why for
Paul faith is contingent on bodily resurrection. If justification is nothing
more than the need for innocent blood to pay for my sin and transform God’s
attitude toward me, with no transformational impact on my own being, then in
the end why the need for bodily resurrection? But if justification leads to the
transformation of theosis by bringing to our bodies the resurrected body of
Jesus, then our bodies are sent by the justifying action of God to minister to
other bodies as Jesus has ministered to ours.” (4634)
Justification and Salvation
“The work of Christ is to give to
humanity his very person, so that through his person we might have the
salvation of participating in the life of God, breathing eternally the air of
life, wholeness, and mercy, having every part of us sustained forever through
the Spirit that is the ministry of the Father to the Son.”
[1] Michael J. Gorman, Inhabiting
the Cruciform God, 31-32.
[2] Gorman, Inhabiting,
35.
[3] Gorman, Inhabiting,
125.
Comments
Post a Comment