Marginal Christianity

The question got my back up. It set off a passionate response disproportionate to the question itself. There was nothing aggressive about the question, nor the questioner. Indeed, the questioner was a former student of mine, for whom I have very high regard. Dave Krause, Amanda Jagt and I were leading a workshop on liturgy for the Christian Reformed community. We were sharing some of the resources that had emerged out of our worship life at Wine Before Breakfast. Dave played some music, Amanda led a prayer litany and we talked about how we shape words in our liturgies. The question came early in the discussion: “Is there room for spontaneity in this kind of worship? Is there room for the Spirit when the liturgy is written out like this?” I could feel my blood pressure rise. There was something about this question that bothered me deeply. Was it a sense of defensiveness for the WBB community? Did I have a notion of liturgical ‘correctness’ that...

The Spirit Jesus poured out at Pentecost on the Jews in Jerusalem marks his “coming again” to his people and through them to his world. And by the Spirit in and through them he “looks” just like he did in his earthly ministry. The same four “C’s” that marked Jesus’ work in Israel now brands the people who go throughout the world as the new form of his presence with us: conversion, community, compassion, and conflict. Listed below are texts in Acts where each of these four “C’s” are seen: Conversion -  2:37-41; 4:4; 5:14; 6:7; 8:26-40; 9:1-19 (parallels in 22:6-16; 26:12-18), 35; ch.10; 11:21, 24; 12:24; 13:48-49; 14:1, 21; 16:5, 11-15; 17:4,12,34; 18:8; 19:26; 28:24 Community -  2:42-47; 4:31,32-37; 6:1-6; 9:17-18; ch.10; 11:26; 13:1-3; ch.15; 18:23; 20:2; 28:28 Compassion -  3:1-10; 4:30; 5:12-16; 8:4-8; 9:17,18,32-43; 11:27-29; 19:11,12; 20:1-12; 28:8-9 Conflict -  4:1-3,5-22; 5:1-11,17-42; 6:8-8:4; 8:14-24; 9:21,23-25; 11:19; 12:1-19; 13:4-12,50-52; ...

I will be suspending Torrance Tuesday in favor of Colin Gunton Tuesday for a while. We’ll work through his important book The One, the Three, and the Many .                                                                                                                                    PART ONE THE DISPLACEMENT OF GOD Introduction Willia...

We’ll be using Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Prayerbook of the Bible (Kindle edition) on the Psalms in this Monday spot replacing Moltmann Mondays for a while. Bonhoeffer has a distinctive take on the Psalms and their role in Christian prayer so I hope you will find the material here provocative and helpful. We often hear that prayer is simply talking to God. Whatever is on our hearts, we should just let him know. Bonhoeffer disagrees. “Praying certainly does not mean simply pouring out one’s heart. It means, rather, finding the way to and speaking with God, whether the heart is full or empty. No one can do that on one’s own. For that one needs Jesus Christ.” (3405-3407) On our own, we have no true prayer. However, “If Christ takes us along in the prayer which Christ prays, if we are allowed to pray this prayer with Christ, on whose way to God we too are led and by whom we are taught to pray, then we are freed from the torment of being without prayer . . . that is what Jesus Chris...

The hullabaloo over holding public worship is the same as prayer in schools. Just as prayer has never, and could never be banned in our schools, so worship cannot be prevented by our not gathering together in church. That's not the issue. The issue, as with school prayer, is the public performance of a religious act as a reaffirmation that we are a Christian nation. It's about reaffirming Christian nationalism, not the worship of the Christian God. Let it go! Love your neighbor. Do feed the political base. Love the Lord and serve the people. And be safe!

Ascension: when absence means "real presence" and "real presence" longs for full presence.

Ascension is a hinge between the completed work of Christ and his installation and exaltation and world ruler and his installation and exaltation in hiddenness and suffering and his full and open adoration by all creation.

Tomorrow is Ascension Day. Ascension Day is about the God Who Completes. So far in the liturgical year we have met the God Who Calls (Advent), the God Who Comes (Christmas), the God Who Confronts (Epiphany), the God Who Cries (Lent), the God Who Confounds (Easter) and now the God Who Completes (Ascension). The rest of the year we’ll celebrate the God Who Comes Again (Pentecost), the Christian God (Trinity Sunday), the Cosmocrator (Christ the King Sunday) before starting anew with Advent next year. But what does Ascension Day complete? It completes God’s work through Jesus, as the reflection below shows. It’s the Feet that Matter In Acts’ account of Jesus’ ascension we read “as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight” (1:9).  Presumably, as the story goes, Jesus’ feet were the last part of him his apostles could see. After receiving their commission to be Jesus’ witness throughout the world, the apostles’ feet remain...

"There is, then, an evangelical way to preach the Gospel and an unevangelical way to preach it. The Gospel is preached in an unevangelical way, as happens so often in modern evangelism, when the preach announces: This is what Jesus Christ has done for you, but you will not be saved unless you make your own personal decision for Christ as your Savior. Or: Jesus Christ loved you and gave his life for you on the Cross, but you will be saved only if you give your heart to him. In that event, what is actually coming across to people is not a Gospel of unconditional grace but some other Gospel of conditional grace which belies the essential nature and content of the Gospel as it is in Jesus. It was that subtle legalist twist to the Gospel which worried St Paul so much in his Epistle to the Galatians…To preach the Gospel in that conditional or legalist way has the effect of telling poor sinners that in the last resort the responsibility for their salvation is taken off the shoulders ...

“For a long time one of the important questions in modern christology was the transition from 'the Jesus of history' to 'the Christ of faith'. I discussed this question in the Theology of Hope (1964; ET1967) and The Crucified God (1972; ET1974). But since then I have come to find another question more important still, because it is more 'down to earth' - more 'embodied'. This question is the path leading from the Jewish Jesus to the Christian Jesus, and the rediscovery of the Jewish Jesus in the Christian Jesus.” ( The Way of Jesus Christ, 1990, xvi) Earlier than most of the rest of us Moltmann made the (re)turn to the Jewish Jesus. The turn from the Jewish Jesus ran out of gas with the existentialist Jesus of the post-war generation. New discoveries of Second Temple Judaism and its riches opened up fresh directions for research. The so-called Third Quest for the Historical Jesus is an expression of this (re)turn to the Jewish Jesus for historica...

Theological Journal – May 16 It’s 4:15 a.m. and I can’t sleep. I heard a song on my phone that made me think I ought to draw up a list of the most theologically rancid and vacuous lyrics with popular tunes and well-sung by noted artists. Everyone will have their own list. I have not included rap music because I don’t listen to it though I understand there are plenty of objectionable lyrics in the, Nor have I included country music because I don’t listen to it and have my doubts if it is really music. Nor have I included Christian music for similar reasons (not to be confused with music by Christians). My list comes from the pop rock music of the 1980’s. That’s the last time I listened to music seriously. So here we go! 1.        “The Greatest Love of All” by Whitney Houston.   Featuring Whitney’s characteristic and classic intensity and range that few other singers can even imagine matching, the insipid lyrics are as bad as Whitney’s vo...

Our words of comfort to the suffering leave silences dripping off their edges. Presence fills these silences even without words.   Consider Job’s much, and mostly rightly, maligned friends. They did one thing right, however. They beheld Job’s suffering from a distance. And they drew near and sit with in silence for a number of days. That probably gave them the credibility to speak to speak. But when they started speaking they quickly lost that credibility. Better they had continued sharing Job’s suffering silently! I suspect that answers to the questions that inevitably arise in times of suffering are (unwittingly) too often attempts to “name those silences” (Hauerwas) to give some sense of reason for or control over the suffering. This, I believe, is what Job’s friends did in their speaking. But these silences to far too important for any answers or names we may give them. Embracing those silences is far better. But that requires a community of not-Job’s friend...

In this Post Script to my posts on God in Control I share a piece I ran across last night. In it Cameron Combs excerpts and comments on the thought of one of the best Pentecostal theologians working, Chris E. W. Green on the theme we have been considering. Worth pondering in tandem with those earlier posts in my estimation. What we think of God matters. When we have this faulty conception of God as just the strongest agent or being in existence we end up speaking of God’s action (or seemingly non-action) in the world wrongly. Green argues that we need to stop saying “God is in control” and rather start to understand that God is sovereign. Control and sovereignty are not the same thing. To say that “God is not in control” doesn’t mean that he is just as surprised at the events that take place as we are and it’s not to say that God is at “the mercy of what happens in the world.” The difference between control and sovereignty is important. Green writes,  “Sovereignty is utterly...

To try and pull together the threads of this meandering series of thoughts about God’s relation to us: -God is not in control - if we mean God has pre-scripted everything that happens to us and therefore our lives are not truly our own. This misconstrues the nature of God’s relation to the world and leaves him open to charges of mismanagement of his world and failure to properly control things in it – and it’s a good thing too! -God is not in control - if we mean by control precisely the same thing we mean when we say we or anyone else is in control of someone or something. Our language about God does not mean exactly what it means when we apply it to others humans. When we do this we run into the same problems noted above – and it’s a good thing too! -Practically speaking, then, thus means we should not tell someone to whom something bad has happened that “it is all part of the plan.” That’s about the worst thing, pastorally speaking, one can say it that kind of situation....

  "There is, then, an evangelical way to preach the Gospel and an unevangelical way to preach it. The Gospel is preached in an unevangelical way, as happens so often in modern evangelism, when the preach announces: This is what Jesus Christ has done for you, but you will not be saved unless you make your own personal decision for Christ as your Savior. Or: Jesus Christ loved you and gave his life for you on the Cross, but you will be saved only if you give your heart to him. In that event, what is actually coming across to people is not a Gospel of unconditional grace but some other Gospel of conditional grace which belies the essential nature and content of the Gospel as it is in Jesus. It was that subtle legalist twist to the Gospel which worried St Paul so much in his Epistle to the Galatians…To preach the Gospel in that conditional or legalist way has the effect of telling poor sinners that in the last resort the responsibility for their salvation is taken off the shoulder...